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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 RYAN MURPHY,
WHRO
Crews of Spaniards who have worked on digging an 8,000-foot tunnel under Hampton Roads for the last year waved Spanish flags and cheered from the top of a huge pit on the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel’s north island.
First, moisture started seeping through tiny cracks in the concrete wall. Then, a larger crack formed and water poured through.
Then, after a few seconds more of the tinkling crackling sound, a three-story tall circular section of concrete fell with an earth-shaking thud. Water used to cool the 430-foot long boring machine, nicknamed Mary, poured out as the massive drill broke through concrete and into fresh air for the first time in a year.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By MARYSA TUTTLE,
WRIC-TV
Virginia lawmakers are calling on the United States Postal Service (USPS) to address mail delivery issues ahead of the 2024 election.
According to the office of Congresswoman Jennifer McClellan, who represents the fourth district of Virginia, McClellan and her colleagues are calling on the USPS to ensure the efficient and secure delivery of election mail. McClellan, as well as Senators Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine (both D-VA) and Representatives Gerry Connolly (D-VA-11), Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-VA-03) and Abigail Spanberger (D-VA-07), wrote a letter to the USPS Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and the USPS Virginia District Manager Gerald Roane.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By DEAN MIRSHAHI,
WRIC-TV
The city of Petersburg can hold a casino vote this November after Virginia lawmakers approved a change to a bill from Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
The Virginia General Assembly approved a bill to make Petersburg eligible for a casino vote, but there was a re-enactment clause added to the legislation to require a second vote to put it into effect.
Gov. Youngkin (R) proposed an amendment to remove that clause that was approved by the House of Delegates and Virginia Senate during the General Assembly’s reconvened session on April 17.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By NATHANIEL CLINE AND CHARLIE PAULLIN,
Virginia Mercury
Gov. Glenn Youngkin and lawmakers have agreed to work together on the biennium budget, after clashing for weeks over two distinctly different spending plans.
A special session will be held on May 13, Youngkin and lawmakers in both chambers announced Wednesday, to consider the revamped budget and prevent a shutdown ahead of July 1, when the current budget expires.
On Wednesday, the House of Delegates voted to reject all 233 of the governor’s amendments to the budget, and agreed to seek a new budget to present to the legislature May 13, with voting on it expected May 15. They also took up the governor’s other bill amendments and 153 vetoes.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By DAVE RESS,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)
The state Senate on Wednesday rejected Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s amendments that would toughen state oversight when Virginia legalizes skill games.
The 34 votes against Youngkin’s proposals versus six supporting them move the measure back to the governor, who has the power to veto the measure. If he does, there is no opportunity to override it.
With the bill now headed back to Youngkin’s desk, “we hope that he reconsiders the future of the tens of thousands of small businesses struggling to make ends meet here in his own commonwealth,” said Rich Kelly, president of the Virginia Merchants and Amusement Coalition, a group of stores that lobbied for legalization.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By SABRINA MORENO,
Axios
Harrison Roday, a first-time candidate vying for Richmond mayor, has raised more money than any other person running for local office in Virginia this year.
That’s according to an Axios analysis of campaign finance reports out this week, which show him raising nearly six times as much as Andreas Addison and 6.5 times more than Michelle Mosby — two other Richmond mayoral candidates.
More than half of Roday’s $365,822 comes from 10 of his former colleagues at a New York-based private equity firm, where he worked until 2022.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By JEFF E. SCHAPIRO,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)
There’s a timeless quip among Jews: If two of us are discussing a topic, expect to hear three opinions.
This doesn’t mean we aren’t of one mind on the survival of Israel. It means there are multiple views on how to ensure that. That debate — along with related issues of Jewish identity, Jewish life, Jewish intellect, Jewish faith — is at full boil at a venue where diversity of opinion is supposed to be the rule, though some, particularly on the right, believe that it’s been crushed by left-leaning intellectual intolerance: the University of Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson, an exemplar of free speech as foundational to democracy.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By TAD DICKENS,
Cardinal News
The Virginia General Assembly on Wednesday took its final steps on a bill intended to solve disputes and speed work in the state’s quest for full broadband deployment.
Both the Senate and the House of Delegates voted unanimously to concur with Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s only recommendation to the so-called “make-ready” bill that centers on utility pole access for broadband cable. Youngkin recommended that the State Corporation Commission, which will arbitrate any disputes, get an extra 60 days to make such decisions, on top of the 180 days the General Assembly granted.
VaNews April 18, 2024
