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Roanoke Times
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The town of Blacksburg is streamlining the process of making and responding to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
It launched a new records management software called JustFOIA, according to a town news release.
JustFOIA is designed for state and local government entities to modernize public records management and accessibility, according to the release.
VaNews April 22, 2024
By SUSAN CAMERON,
Cardinal News
Recently unsealed search warrants executed at cannabis-related stores as part of a sweeping law enforcement operation across Southwest Virginia last fall detail weeks of undercover buys and catalog the seizure of ATMs, thousands of dollars in cash and containers of plant materials bearing labels like “Grease Monkey” and “Stomp Purple.”
A spokeswoman for the Virginia State Police, which helped coordinate the sweep, said there have been no charges or arrests in connection with the searches. The agency is “still working through the investigation” with the county commonwealth’s attorneys, Corinne Geller said Friday.
VaNews April 22, 2024
By CHARLIE PAULLIN,
Virginia Mercury
Almost 20,000 acres have been lit by flames that primarily torched the western and central parts of the state so far during Virginia’s 2024 spring fire season. With about a week left until the season ends, that is double the amount of acres affected annually in the state across its 10-year average.
There’s no question that the fires visibly caused an immediate loss of vegetation and wildlife habitat, but state and federal officials said in interviews with the Mercury last week the blazes provide some benefits and are a centuries-old resource management tool.
“It does play an important role in the ecosystem,” said Michael Downey, assistant director for wildfire mitigation and prevention at the Virginia Department of Forestry.
VaNews April 22, 2024
By NATHANIEL CLINE,
Virginia Mercury
While 2050 is more than a quarter century away, The Virginia Railway Express wants to start transforming its commuter rail operations much sooner by offering Saturday services as it considers its System Plan 2050, part of holistic, multi-agency efforts to transform rail services in the commonwealth.
Last year, the VRE Operations Board — which is represented by the nine jurisdictions that fund the commuter rail service — backed the agency’s budget that included a 5% fare hike, or 50 cents more, due to the increase in services since 2020. The budget also included a plan to, for the first time, operate Saturday train service on tracks shared with Amtrak, CSX and Norfolk Southern.
VaNews April 22, 2024
By JASON ARMESTO,
Daily Progress
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The United States Congress is broken. So said L.F. Payne, a Virginia Democrat who represented Virginia’s 5th Congressional District in the House of Representatives from 1988 to 1997, during a special visit to Charlottesville Friday. “In the last Congress, I think there were over 500 pieces of legislation that were passed,” Payne said, adding that’s on track with recent history. “This Congress by comparison, now three-fourths of the way through, has passed 69 pieces of legislation. So it is clearly by many measurements dysfunctional.” ... Now serving as president of Former Members of Congress, or FMC, a bipartisan nonprofit group, part of Payne’s job is to help remedy that dysfunction.
VaNews April 22, 2024
By LUKE WEIR,
Roanoke Times
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Your trash becomes gas. It happens gradually, as mountains of our garbage decompose at Smith Gap Regional Landfill in Roanoke County. That’s where the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority hauls all the waste — more than 500 million pounds per year — from Roanoke, Salem, Roanoke County and Vinton. Among rotten banana peels and other decaying organic material sealed inside the landfill, methane-rich fumes are captured by a system of buried vacuum tubes ...
VaNews April 22, 2024
By DAN RONAN,
WTOP
Thursday’s near collision at Reagan National Airport is raising concerns about plans to increase the number of flights at the airport.
Virginia Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine said Thursday morning’s close call at Reagan National is another reason not to expand the number of flights at the airport as some other senators are attempting to do.
“It’s just plain crazy that some are pushing to add more flights to DCA’s overburdened runway,” Warner said to the Senate Friday.
VaNews April 22, 2024
By BILL ATKINSON,
Progress Index
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Hopewell’s outgoing city attorney has recommended that the Virginia attorney general’s office look into claims by an alleged department employee that the city’s treasurer improperly removed herself from a state agency’s list of delinquent taxpayers without attempting to settle her own tax debts. The allegations against Shannon Foskey were brought up in a letter sent last week to Commonwealth’s Attorney Rick Newman and cited in an April 18 memo from now-former city attorney Danielle Smith to City Manager Dr. Concetta Manker.
VaNews April 22, 2024
By CATHY DYSON,
Free Lance-Star
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People who’ve gotten free medical care at the Moss Free Clinic, as well as those who volunteer and work there, joined members of the community Sunday to show their support for the services the clinic provides. Jim Eagan told the crowd of about 80 people that he went to the clinic when he had an abscessed tooth and couldn’t find help anywhere else. ... The rally came about as the partnership between Mary Washington Healthcare and the clinic, named after the late co-founder, Dr. Lloyd Moss, has deteriorated in recent months.
VaNews April 22, 2024
By MATT BUSSE,
Cardinal News
The Roanoke-based fiber-optic technology company Luna Innovations Inc. on Friday added more than a year’s worth of previous financial statements to the list of those that it says are no longer reliable.
Luna said in a news release that a committee formed by its board of directors has determined that the company’s financial statements from 2022 and the first quarter of 2023 “cannot be relied upon and need to be restated due to identified accounting errors relating to revenue recognition.”
VaNews April 22, 2024
