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VaNews Sept. 16, 2019
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Today's Sponsor:


** Dominion Energy
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We're taking action beyond just reducing our own emissions, with partnerships that capture more greenhouse gases than they emit. Learn more at www.alignrng.com/

Read Online ([link removed]) 10 Most Clicked ([link removed])


** FROM VPAP
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** VISUALIZATION: PUTTING UP A BIG NUMBER ([link removed])
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The Virginia Public Access Project

By Tuesday morning, the truth will be told about what happened during the key fundraising months of July and August. In campaign finance reports due at midnight, the goal of each General Assembly candidate will be to post the largest possible "cash on hand." This visualization shows time-tested ways candidates manage their campaign funds in order to magnify their all-important cash position.


** EXECUTIVE BRANCH
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** VIRGINIA ATTORNEY GENERAL SAYS COUPLES DO NOT NEED TO GIVE RACE INFORMATION FOR MARRIAGE LICENSES ([link removed])
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By FRANK GREEN, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring has concluded that while circuit court clerks must ask people seeking a marriage license their race, it does not require they have to answer the question in order to obtain a license. As a result, the Division of Vital Records has revised the marriage certificate form so it is clear that applicants for a marriage license can decline to answer the question about race. Clerks were notified by the Virginia Supreme Court’s Office of the Executive Secretary late Friday in an email made available to the Richmond Times-Dispatch by a clerk.


** VA. UPDATES RACE QUERY ON MARRIAGE LICENSES ([link removed])
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By HANNAH NATANSON, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Virginia will no longer require couples to identify by race on their marriage licenses, the state’s attorney general announced this week. Under a new policy — which Attorney General Mark Herring detailed in emails to court clerks and members of the media late Friday — people getting married will be able to select “Declined to Answer” in a box asking about race.


** THE WEDDING IS BACK ON FOR COUPLE WHO SUED VIRGINIA OVER RACE QUESTION, BUT THE LAWSUIT ISN'T OVER ([link removed])
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By FRANK GREEN, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

A Lexington couple who refused to fill in the race question on their marriage license application are delighted that action taken by Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring will allow them to marry next month as planned.


** GENERAL ASSEMBLY
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** CHASING MENHADEN ([link removed])
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By DAVE RESS, Daily Press (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

The second set went fast — the 150,000 menhaden in the net not as “heavy” — that is, as frisky swimmers — as the fish in the Cockrells Creek’s first haul, farther down along the York Spit Channel a half hour earlier. ... These days, menhaden are at the center of an obscure, if fiercely fought, political battle over who should catch them


** ROANOKE'S DEL. RASOUL PLANNING NEW SEMINAR ON LEGISLATIVE BILLS ([link removed])
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By AMY FRIEDENBERGER, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

Del. Sam Rasoul is bringing back his program for people interested in writing their own pieces of legislation to submit to the Virginia General Assembly.


** STATE ELECTIONS
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** IN REDRAWN LEGISLATIVE DISTRICTS, CAMPAIGNING CANDIDATES WRITE LETTERS, GO DOOR-TO-DOOR TO INTRODUCE THEMSELVES ([link removed])
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By DAVE RESS, Daily Press (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Del. David Yancey, R-Newport News, walked into a neighborhood newly attached to his district looking for votes and walked out with a new tighthead prop for the high school rugby team he coaches. That can be the way of things when legislative candidates head out to meet voters, especially when recently-redrawn district lines mean they’re talking to people they’ve never met before.


** IT’S ON: VA. VOTERS FLIP SWITCH FOR ‘OFF-OFF-YEAR’ ELECTIONS ([link removed])
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By LAURA VOZZELLA, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Sarabeth Spasojevich voted faithfully for president every four years but, like many Virginia Democrats, skipped the elections in between. Then Donald Trump won the White House, and her voting habits were transformed. She went to the polls in 2017, part of an anti-Trump tsunami that put a Democrat in the governor’s mansion and flipped 15 seats in the House of Delegates.


** GABRIELLE GIFFORDS TO CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA FOR STATE HOUSE AND SENATE CANDIDATES ([link removed])
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By LAURA VOZZELLA, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords will campaign in Virginia two days this week for state House and Senate candidates who support stricter gun laws, an issue that gained momentum in the state after a mass shooting in Virginia Beach.


** FREITAS WILL REPORT GETTING $500K FROM GOP MEGADONOR, CAMPAIGN SAYS ([link removed])
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By GRAHAM MOOMAW, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Republican state Del. Nick Freitas, R-Culpeper, will report a $500,000 campaign contribution from top GOP donor Richard Uihlein, an Illinois-based shipping supplies magnate who has given millions to national conservative groups.


** HANOVER GOP CHAIRMAN DEMANDS DEL. CHRIS PEACE DISAVOW WRITE-IN VOTES ([link removed])
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By GRAHAM MOOMAW, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

The chairman of the Hanover County Republican Committee has asked departing Del. Chris Peace to disavow a “very public write-in campaign” allegedly being run by Peace supporters disillusioned by the incumbent’s primary loss earlier this year.


** FEDERAL ELECTIONS
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** WHILE SPANBERGER URGED CIVILITY, A CAMPAIGN ASSOCIATE WAS PROFANELY ATTACKING REPUBLICANS ON TWITTER ([link removed])
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By PATRICK WILSON, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Rep. Abigail Spanberger laments incivility in politics, by Republicans and members of her own party. But one of her campaign speechwriters has spent months trolling Republicans on Twitter, often using personal attacks and vulgar terminology.


** STATE GOVERNMENT
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** FIRST STUDY OF WORKERS’ COMPENSATION CONDUCTED IN 30 YEARS ([link removed])
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By MAURA MAZUROWSKI, Virginia Lawyers Weekly (Paywall for some articles)

The Joint Legislative and Audit Commission is conducting its first study on workers’ compensation in Virginia in almost 30 years. JLARC, which evaluates government programs and analyzes state agencies on behalf of the Virginia General Assembly, has been researching Virginia Workers’ Compensation Commission since the start of the year.


** CHARLOTTESVILLE JUDGE SAYS CONFEDERATE STATUES CANNOT BE REMOVED, WILL AWARD ATTORNEYS FEES ([link removed])
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By TYLER HAMMEL, Daily Progress (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

A Charlottesville Circuit Court judge has ruled that two Confederate statues do not send a racially discriminatory message and issued a permanent injunction preventing their removal.


** NORTHAM APPOINTS REPLACEMENT AT AGENCY DEBOER HAD LED ([link removed])
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By MEL LEONOR, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Gov. Ralph Northam on Friday tapped Mary Broz-Vaughan to lead the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation, an agency she has led on a temporary basis since its former director was removed in January over allegations of mismanagement.


** VIRGINIA JAILS STRUGGLE TO SCREEN INMATES, PREVENT SUICIDE ([link removed])
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By DENISE LAVOIE, Associated Press

Benjamin Wash had a long history of drug addiction and had tried to kill himself at least once before he was booked into the Riverside Regional Jail in Virginia on Nov. 28, 2017. But somehow, he was able to hang himself with a bedsheet two days after he was detained. Wash was one of 51 inmates who killed themselves in Virginia jails over the past five years.


** ANOREXIC WOMAN LANDS AT GROUND ZERO OF STATE MENTAL HOSPITAL CRISIS ([link removed])
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By MICHAEL MARTZ, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Angel Love Fuller came into the waiting room with fear in her eyes. Fuller, 36, was frail and emaciated because of the eating disorder that landed her here in Building 96, the new admissions unit for civil patients at a Virginia mental hospital that previously had admitted few of them for crisis care.


** OFFICIALS SAY ARCHAEOLOGIST IS UNQUALIFIED FOR RASSAWEK WATER PROJECT ([link removed])
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By ALLISON WRABEL, Daily Progress (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

A planned water intake and pump station slated to be built along the James River on the site of the ancient village of Rassawek, the historic capital of the Monacan Tribe, could be delayed after officials determined an archaeologist consulting on the project was unqualified.


** ECONOMY/BUSINESS
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** DOMINION TO START WORK ON CONTROVERSIAL $175M POWER LINE IN I-66 CORRIDOR ([link removed])
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By EMILY SIDES, Inside NOVA

Dominion plans to start clearing land and putting in access roads in October to officially begin construction of its 5.3-mile power line project through Gainesville. Dominion officials say the new line is necessary to help power a data center in Haymarket owned by an Amazon subsidiary and to keep the system reliable.


** AMAZON: 60 HIRED FOR FUTURE HQ2 IN ARLINGTON ([link removed])
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By EMILY SIDES, Inside NOVA

Amazon is on track to hire by the end of the year 400 people for its planned $2.5 billion headquarters in Arlington and Alexandria dubbed HQ2 and National Landing, said Ardine Williams, Amazon’s vice president of people operations and workforce development for the site.


** AMAZON’S ‘CAREER DAY’ EXPECTED TO DRAW THOUSANDS TO CRYSTAL CITY ([link removed])
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By PATRICIA SULLIVAN, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Thousands of job-seekers are expected to swarm the site of Amazon’s future headquarters at a “career day” in Crystal City on Tuesday, as the online retail giant begins to accelerate its hiring and presence in Northern Virginia.


** NORTHERN VIRGINIA COUNTIES AND CITIES FORM ALLIANCE TO LURE COMPANIES AND JOBS ([link removed])
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By ROBERT MCCARTNEY, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Prompted partly by the success in luring Amazon, 10 Northern Virginia jurisdictions have formed an alliance to market themselves as a region to attract other companies, especially those in the high-tech arena.


** TRANSPORTATION
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** 395 EXPRESS LANES ON TRACK TO OPEN IN NOVEMBER ([link removed])
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By LUZ LAZO, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

The commutes of thousands of Washington-area residents will change this fall when tolling begins on an eight-mile stretch of Interstate 395 in Northern Virginia, one of the busiest gateways into the nation’s capital. The reversible, high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes set to open in November will be the latest addition to the region’s growing network of toll roads.


** ALEXANDRIA CITY COUNCIL VOTES FOR CONTROVERSIAL BIKE LANES ON SEMINARY ROAD ([link removed])
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By PATRICIA SULLIVAN, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

The Alexandria City Council voted 4 to 3 Saturday for a controversial plan to trade traffic lanes for bike lanes on Seminary Road, despite protests from many residents who said it will worsen gridlock on a congested stretch of the highway just east of Interstate 395.


** HIGHER EDUCATION
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** LIBERTY STUDENTS PROTEST IN WAKE OF REPORTS ABOUT FALWELL ([link removed])
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By BEN FINLEY, Associated Press

Students at Liberty University in Virginia gathered Friday to protest in the wake of news reports containing allegations that school president Jerry Falwell Jr. improperly benefited from the institution and disparaged students in emails.


** JERRY FALWELL'S LIBERTY UNIVERSITY DOGGED BY GROWING CLAIMS OF CORRUPTION ([link removed])
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By MIRANDA BRYANT, The Guardian

Since January 2016, when the head of Liberty University, Jerry Falwell Jr, endorsed Donald Trump for president, the influential evangelical university has been on a fast-track to the heart of American politics. Since being credited with helping Trump earn the loyal support of the Christian right, Falwell has become a regular presence at the White House. Meanwhile, the university, founded in 1971 by his late father, the Rev Jerry Falwell Sr, has expanded exponentially.


** STUDENT PROTEST AT LIBERTY UNIVERSITY DRAWS HUNDREDS OF ONLOOKERS ([link removed])
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By RICHARD CHUMNEY, News & Advance (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

In the wake of a series of news reports regarding allegations of misconduct by Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr., over two dozen of the university’s more than 10,000 residential students rallied on the steps of the student union Friday and called for a formal investigation into the accusations.


** FORMER VHCC PRESIDENT SUBJECT OF CRIMINAL PROBE ([link removed])
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By ROB WALTERS, Bristol Herald Courier (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

A federal grand jury last year launched an investigation into the former president of Virginia Highlands Community College and the school’s fundraising arm. The panel subpoenaed records of all transactions from 2015 to Oct. 10, 2018, between Gene Couch and the Virginia Highlands Community College Educational Foundation.


** FALLING YIELDS UNLEASH FLOOD OF MUNI ‘CENTURY BONDS’ ([link removed])
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By GUNJAN BANERJI, Wall Street Journal (Subscription Required)

U.S. state and local governments, along with universities, are joining companies in a dash to issue debt and lock in low rates, sometimes for up to 100 years. Rutgers University funded various capital projects by selling roughly $300 million in debt this week that doesn’t mature for a century. The New Jersey-based school adds to a list that includes the University of Virginia and University of Pennsylvania, which have also sold so-called century bonds in recent weeks. “The market presented UVA with a historic opportunity,” said Jennifer Wagner Davis, the school’s executive vice president and chief operating officer.


** VIRGINIA OTHER
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** REBEL STATUES, GOLDEN CALVES ([link removed])
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By HANNAH NATANSON, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Charlottesville’s Confederate monuments played many roles in recent years: the epicenter of a legal and cultural battle over what should count as cherished history, the rallying spot for murderous white supremacists, the touchstone of a painful national reckoning with America’s slave-owning past. Now, they’re fodder for a Bible study. Two Methodist pastors selected the monuments as the sites and subjects of their ongoing class, “Swords into Plowshares: What the Bible says about injustice, idolatry, and repentance.”


** ONLINE MAP DETAILS HISTORY OF THE STATE’S FORMER ROSENWALD SCHOOLS FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS ([link removed])
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By DENISE M. WATSON, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Before NBA star Allen Iverson shot hoops at the Shell Road Boys and Girls Club in Hampton, part of the building was one of the peninsula’s largest schools for African American students. Portsmouth’s Olympian Sports Club building, known for its banquets and Saturday night jams, started as a two-teacher school for blacks in the 1920s. Those historical nuggets are part of the reason why Preservation Virginia recently completed an online, interactive map of the state’s Rosenwald Schools — 382 of the more than 5,300 built in the South from 1917 to 1932.


** LOCAL
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** RICHMOND AIRBNB HOSTS MADE A COMBINED $3.8M THIS SUMMER - EVEN THOUGH THEY'RE STILL ILLEGAL ([link removed])
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By KARRI PEIFER, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

When Carrie Rogers and her husband built a treehouse for their nephew on the edge of their property in Westover Hills in 2014, they had no idea it would one day be a destination for families and travelers from all over the world.


** VCU STUDY: LIVES SAVED, RECIDIVISM LOW FOR GRADUATES OF CHESTERFIELD JAIL'S HEROIN RECOVERY PROGRAM ([link removed])
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By MARK BOWES, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

A heroin recovery program at the Chesterfield County Jail is saving lives and has significantly reduced recidivism among the inmates who graduate, according to an independent study, while saving thousands of tax dollars for each inmate who doesn’t commit a new crime and return to jail.


** NORFOLK SCHOOLS SAY THEY MISTAKENLY PAID CHAIRWOMAN’S BROTHER-IN-LAW FOR VOLUNTEER WORK ([link removed])
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By SARA GREGORY, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Norfolk Public Schools mistakenly paid the School Board chairwoman’s brother-in-law for volunteer work, one of its attorneys said. Chairwoman Noelle Gabriel’s brother-in-law, Nate Kinnison, has been an off-and-on volunteer with the district’s All-City Jazz program for several years, Deputy City Attorney Jack Cloud said in an email.


** PORTSMOUTH JAIL TALKS BETWEEN CITY, SHERIFF HAVE BROKEN DOWN ([link removed])
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By SCOTT DAUGHERTY, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Talks between the sheriff and city staff regarding the future of the Portsmouth City Jail have gone nowhere, according to representatives of both sides. And there are few, if any, hopes of a deal.


** 'LONG WAY TO GO': SCHOOL DIVISIONS CHANGING TACTICS TO BOOST TEACHER DIVERSITY ([link removed])
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By KATHERINE KNOTT, Daily Progress (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Bria Williams can count on one hand how many teachers she had who looked like her during her 13 years at Charlottesville City Schools. So can Chiaka Chuks, a product of Albemarle County schools. “I can remember being sad about not having that many African American teachers,” said Williams, a first grade teacher at Johnson Elementary.


** SOUTHERN VIRGINIA HAS ONE OF THE HIGHEST RATES OF PROTECTIVE ORDER FILINGS IN STATE ([link removed])
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By QUASHON AVENT, Danville Register & Bee

Southern Virginia has nearly double the amount of protective orders issued to protect alleged victims of violence than expected for a region of its population, a nonprofit law firm has noted. “For years, we’ve gotten a lot of calls from victims of domestic violence or people fleeing a domestic violence situation,” said David Weilnau, managing attorney of the Danville office of the Virginia Legal Aid Society.

Today's Sponsor:


** Dominion Energy
------------------------------------------------------------

We're taking action beyond just reducing our own emissions, with partnerships that capture more greenhouse gases than they emit. Learn more at www.alignrng.com/


** EDITORIALS
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** CONDUCTING MANAGER SEARCHES IN SECRET SHOWS CONTEMPT FOR PUBLIC ([link removed])
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Virginian-Pilot Editorial (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

The Chesapeake City Council on Tuesday introduced Christopher Price, deputy executive of Prince William County in Northern Virginia, as its choice to become the community’s 11th city manager.


** HOW VIRGINIA CAN GET SOME CLARITY ON JUSTIN FAIRFAX ([link removed])
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Washington Post Editorial (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax’s once-promising political career, and possibly his professional one, have hung in the balance since February, when he was accused of sexual assault by two women, neither of whom had any apparent reason to lie.


** REGION DESERVES MORE TRANSPORTATION DOLLARS ([link removed])
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Free Lance-Star Editorial (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

Smart Scale was designed to take the politics out of transportation funding and replace it with an objective, outcome-based, cost-benefit system that prioritizes projects according to a weighted set of factors, including improvements to safety, congestion reduction, accessibility, land use, economic development and the environment. But it isn’t working properly for the Fredericksburg region.


** VIRGINIA PLAN WILL BOLSTER BAY’S HEALTH ([link removed])
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Virginian-Pilot Editorial (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

A few decades ago, saving the Chesapeake Bay looked like a lost cause. But, through concerted efforts across the region that feeds the bay — with Virginia taking a leading role — that goal is within reach. The plan of action for Virginia that Gov. Ralph Northam released late in August outlines strong and realistic measures to lead the final push.


** RACE, 'LOVING,' LOVE AND MARRIAGE IN VIRGINIA ([link removed])
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News & Advance Editorial (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

In his short story “Requiem for a Nun,” the author William Faulkner penned the famous line about his native South that speaks volumes to this day: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Three Virginia couples seeking to obtain marriage licenses in the commonwealth have shined a light on a vestige of this state’s segregationist past still alive and well in the law and are fighting to erase almost a century of racism from the statutes.


** WE KNOW THE PROBLEMS; WE NEED ACTION ([link removed])
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Richmond Free Press Editorial

It’s tough to dig yourself out of a hole. But Gov. Ralph S. Northam is still in the trench trying to work his way out eight months after his sad and disgraceful blackface scandal. His latest attempts to resurrect himself and his bona fides with the African-American community? He named Dr. Janice Underwood of Old Dominion University as the state’s new director of diversity, equity and inclusion.


** AFTER 1619 COMMEMORATIONS, WHAT COMES NEXT? ([link removed])
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Daily Press Editorial (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

This year, Virginia is recognizing the 400-year anniversary of several key events that took place in 1619. The most recent commemoration held in August at Fort Monroe and was primarily anchored to the first recorded landing of Africans in the English-speaking colonies.


** WHY VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA SHOULD SWAP GOVERNORS ([link removed])
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Roanoke Times Editorial (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

Sports teams trade players all the time. What if states could do the same with politicians? Consider this a thought experiment. If states could trade politicians like athletes, here’s the trade we’d propose: Virginia and North Carolina should swap governors. We’d send Ralph Northam to Raleigh and in return get Roy Cooper.


** DON’T BE AFRAID, BUT BE AWARE ([link removed])
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Richmond Times-Dispatch Editorial (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

In August 2018, more than 100 homes in Lynchburg were evacuated after a public safety alert. The College Lake Dam — an aging 1930s structure owned by the city — was approaching “imminent failure.” If the dam breached, 17 feet of water could fill the city in seven minutes.


** BISCUIT RUN PARK: SHOW US THE MONEY ([link removed])
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Daily Progress Editorial (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Biscuit Run Park was an ambitious undertaking — perhaps too ambitious. Now Albemarle County is having to ask Richmond for money to develop the park — and that might be overly ambitious as well.


** PULASKI'S AMBITIOUS GOAL ([link removed])
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Roanoke Times Editorial (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

Pulaski County wants to defy not only the past but also the future. That makes it worth paying attention to what’s happening on the south side of the New River. The past: Pulaski County’s population peaked in 1980 and, with the brief exception of the 1990s, has declined ever since. That puts Pulaski County right in line with the rest of Southwest Virginia and, indeed, rural Virginia in general. So what’s new?


** COLUMNISTS
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** SCHAPIRO: JUDGING TROUBLE FOR A FAMILIAR VIRGINIA NAME ([link removed])
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By JEFF E. SCHAPIRO, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Thomas Cullen is a young man in a hurry. But maybe he’s tapping the brakes. Cullen is chief federal prosecutor for the western half of Virginia. He has been in that office for 17 months, since March 2018. Donald Trump, racing to tilt the judiciary to the right ahead of an uncertain re-election campaign, might have another job in mind for Cullen: a U.S. District Court judgeship, open nearly two years.


** WILLIAMS: IT'S LONG PAST THE TIME FOR VIRGINIA TO DIVORCE RACE QUESTIONS FROM MARRIAGE. ([link removed])
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By MICHAEL PAUL WILLIAMS, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

It was as if the state of Alabama had turned the concept of marriage on its head and vowed, “What Jim Crow has put asunder, let no man join.” Interracial marriage was unconstitutional in that state as recently as 2000, more than three decades after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1967 Loving v. Virginia ruling ended restrictions on marriage based on race.


** OP-ED
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** RILEY: CONGRESS TO HEAR BILL THAT SCARES THE HECK OUT OF SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS ([link removed])
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By NICOLE RILEY, Published in the Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

Many Americans are worried about the amount of data now being collected about them and how it could be used to clone their identity, violate their privacy, or lead to fraud. A bill about to be considered by Congress would make almost every small business owner an easier target for identity thieves.

Riley is the Virginia state director for NFIB, a small business advocacy association that represents thousands of members in the state


** GIBSON: THE CHANGING FACE OF VIRGINIA POLITICS ([link removed])
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By BOB GIBSON, Published in the Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

The Virginia General Assembly of the past never truly resembled the state’s population as, for decade after decade into this century, it looked like an old boy’s club. In 2002, only 22 of the 140 members of the legislature were women, a small number that stayed relatively static over six election cycles

Gibson is communications director and senior researcher at the University of Virginia’s Cooper Center for Public Service.


** BROWN: FORT MONROE CONTINUES EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH ([link removed])
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By TERRY E. BROWN, Published in the Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Knowing the history of a nation, a people, or a culture is crucial to understanding the past and also the present. This knowledge provides a deeper appreciation for the struggles, the cross-cultural influences, and the journey that those who came before us endured and how they influenced our current state.

Terry E. Brown is superintendent of the Fort Monroe National Monument, part of the National Park Service, in Hampton.


** MORSE: SUING PATIENTS AN UNBECOMING LOOK FOR U.VA. ([link removed])
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By GORDON C. MORSE, Published in the Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

“UVA Health System has targeted thousands of patients for unpaid bills,” a Tuesday Washington Post headline read and a whole lot of people, all over the commonwealth, winced. They were wincing up there within U.Va.’s leadership ranks, believe me.

Gordon C. Morse wrote editorials for the Daily Press and The Pilot in the 1980s. He later wrote speeches for Gov. Gerald L. Baliles, then worked for corporate and philanthropic organizations


** STEARNS: AIRPORT’S FUTURE DEPENDS ON COOPERATION ([link removed])
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By DEBORAH STEARNS, Published in the Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Norfolk International Airport has successfully coexisted with the U.S. Navy since 1942, first when the nearby facility was called Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek and now as Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story. The Norfolk Airport Authority has worked diligently to meet both the needs of Naval operations and those of traveling citizens of Hampton Roads.

Deborah Stearns is senior vice president of Jones Lang LaSalle and former chair of the Norfolk Airport Authority Board of Commissioners


** RAGOSTA: WHAT WE’RE MISSING IN ALL THE FUSS ([link removed])
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By JOHN RAGOSTA, Published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Unless you’re living in a cave, you’ve heard the shouting and recriminations accompanying publication by The New York Times of “The 1619 Project” — a series of essays commemorating the legacy of the first enslaved Africans brought to English North America in 1619. Among historians and recent students of American history, there is little startling here.

John Ragosta is a historian at the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, a fellow at Virginia Humanities and co-editor of “The Founding of Thomas Jefferson’s University.”


** CARROLL: THE OLD DOMINION’S NEW LOOK ON SAVING LIVES ([link removed])
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By JIM CARROLL, Published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Last April, I had the privilege of participating in the Faces and Voices of Recovery Awards Ceremony of the McShin Foundation, which is based in the Richmond area. This ceremony provided an opportunity to recognize some of those who have helped their fellow Virginians make tremendous strides on their recovery journey.

Jim Carroll is the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
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