RK ARCHIVE - "Whipple Clips" for Sunday

Va News Sunday, June 24, 2007
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1. KAINE MEETS KIN OF TECH VICTIMS
Some ask to be on panel investigating the shooting tragedy

Following a private meeting yesterday with relatives of victims of the Virginia Tech mass slaying, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine stood by his decision to exclude family members from the panel investigating the tragedy.

However, Kaine said he would take steps to improve communications between relatives and the eight-member commission, headed by former state police superintendent W. Gerald Massengill. "We're going to fiddle with this over the next couple of days," said Kaine, declining to elaborate.

Richmond, VA - Gov. Timothy M. Kaine met Saturday for two hours with relatives of those killed at Virginia Tech and pledged they would have access to a panel investigating the shootings, but stopped short of giving them a seat on the panel. The relatives have demanded representation on an eight-member panel Kaine has appointed to investigate the April 16 shootings that left 33 dead, including the gunman. Kaine said after the closed-door meeting in the Capitol that the makeup of the panel would not change, but he would work to make sure family members had access to panel members and information.

RICHMOND -- The relatives of 20 students and faculty members killed during the Virginia Tech massacre met with Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) on Saturday to press their demands for a bigger role on the panel investigating the shootings and to raise concerns about how the university handled the incident. The meeting, described by many as extremely emotional, was convened at the state Capitol so the families could push for the appointment of a liaison to Kaine's Virginia Tech Review Panel who would work with it on a daily basis. After the meeting, Kaine said that he is committed to giving the parents "as much access to the panel as they want" but that he would not appoint a family member to the eight-member panel.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine promised families of Virginia Tech shooting victims Saturday greater openness during the investigation of the massacre and asked them to work with him to make college campuses safer. In a meeting at the state Capitol that lasted two hours and 20 minutes, the governor answered questions and listened as parents and spouses shared their grief and frustrations. Forty relatives representing 17 families traveled to the Capitol to speak with the governor. Five other families participated by phone.

At The Homestead this past week for their annual shakedown of lobbyists, General Assembly Democrats were positively jubilant -- and not just over the $300,000 raised from hospitals, auto dealers, utilities, drug companies, retailers, payday and car-title lenders and other deep-pocketed special interests. Out-of-power Democrats gushed that because of Republican fratricide in June's primaries, their chances of winning four seats and taking back the Virginia Senate have improved exponentially. Maybe it was the intoxicating mountain air, but few Democrats seemed to consider the nightmare scenario, one far worse than a continued GOP majority: an evenly divided Senate.

Will "feminazi" join "macaca" in the encyclopedia of career-ending political utterances? The re-election campaign of state Sen. Nick Rerras will answer that question. Until a few months ago, Democrats had little hope of defeating the two-term Republican in the 6 th District, which includes the northern half of Norfolk, a small slice of the Bayside section of Virginia Beach, the Eastern Shore and Mathews County.

Several weeks before his death, the Rev. Jerry Falwell was determined to close the gap between Lynchburg's Ward III and two other city voting wards by encouraging Liberty University students to register to vote in local elections. "We have never registered our students," Falwell said in an April interview. "So therefore, we are at the mercy of other wards. We want fair and equal representation. We want Ward III to have equal footing with all the rest of the wards. Just in recent weeks it's gotten to the top of our list."

Community leaders say they fight an uphill battle when trying to register voters in Ward II. Since at least 1994, Ward II - which covers most of downtown Lynchburg - consistently has had the fewest number of registered voters compared to the city's other three wards. It has produced the fewest number of at-large City Council candidates, for which anyone in the city can vote. Unlike other wards, it has 600 jail inmates counted against its voting population when determining the boundaries of the wards. The inmates are unlikely or ineligible to vote.

A proposal to turn a three-acre field off Boonsboro Road into homes, shops and offices galvanized many in Lynchburg's politically savvy Ward I to action. Dozens have turned out at planning commission and City Council meetings, hundreds have signed a petition against the development and City Council members and city staffers have fielded numerous phone calls.

By now, most everyone in Culpeper has heard about the 287 (g) ?Delegation of Immigration Authority? provision of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Numerous local leaders and residents have weighed in on the pros and cons of the federal program in which local law enforcement agencies receive five weeks of training in immigration-related enforcement.

Tensions surface easily, sometimes in very raw terms, in Culpeper, where the growing number of Hispanic faces stands out in many other locals' eyes. While other places in Virginia - Manassas among them - also are grappling with illegal immigration, Culpeper, with roughly 15,000 residents, has been painfully wrenched over the issue lately. As Congress considers immigration reform, it's not clear what effects reform would have in Culpeper, where the debate reflects views heard across the state and nation.

Hampton, VA - Virginia State Police are using digital cameras that can scan highways and parking lots for hot cars and stolen license plates. Using the digital images, police can compare the plates against any database of license plates: those associated with fugitives, stolen cars, plates that have been stolen, and so on. State police began using the $16,000 readers several months ago around the state. Their models take 25 photos per second, said Carl Fisher, a special agent with the Help Eliminate Auto Theft, or HEAT, a program of the State Police. Officers only have to turn the system on, and if it gets a hit, an alarm sounds. A computer checks the plates against the latest FBI "hot sheet" of stolen autos. The equipment can scan plates day or night.

CHESAPEAKE -- A day after he left the Republican party, Chesapeake Councilman C.E. "Cliff" Hayes Jr. announced Saturday that he will become a Democrat. "I'd rather be disliked for who I am than to be loved for who I am not," Hayes told a group of 20 friends and supporters at the Residence Inn by Marriott in Chesapeake.

Some Loudoun Republicans are accusing the chairman of the county's Board of Supervisors of a conflict of interest in connection with a zoning case. They say Scott K. York (I), who is an executive vice president of the Colorado-based ServiceStar Development Co., made an ethical error when he participated in a December meeting with county planners about an Ashburn property partly owned by his company. "The bottom line is, Scott York shouldn't be sitting with Loudoun County staff in meetings representing the company paying his salary," said Supervisor Mick Staton Jr. (R-Sugarland Run). "His presence in the room is undue influence."

STAUNTON ? Many buildings have come and gone at the Virginia School for the Deaf and the Blind since its founding in 1838. Bass replaced Montague. Tyler burned and made way for Battle. Many other halls sprouted up in the 1940s, '50s and '60s ? some without a sense of their audience, others, well-constructed and much loved. But through it all, the old battle-ax, Main Hall, constructed in the 1830s, remains.

16. NOT JUST BORDERS LIMIT OUR LOCALITIES
Region's cooperation thrives in places, but could we do better?

We cooperate in dozens of ways across city and county lines -- as much as we can afford to, some say, but others argue we could do better. When people on either side of a county or city line have the same headaches, it's tempting to look for regional answers. But regional efforts are limited by a host of factors.

17. WITH MANY ABSENT, PANEL PLANS FOR FUTURE
Up to a third of the 40 local officials have not gone to 2007 meetings

For 37 years, a commission of nine localities has been the place to envision the Richmond region's future. In the past half-year, the Richmond Regional Planning District Commission canceled two monthly meetings. As many as a third of the 40 local officials who are supposed to go to the commission's meetings did not. Of 26 pages of meeting minutes detailing the group's work so far this year, 11-+ were devoted to discussions of retirement benefits for four employees.

Long-awaited highway projects are officially on the way for central Virginia. The Commonwealth Transportation Board has approved:

19. LOOKING BACK ...
It's a long road that brought us to this transportation mess

The present rush - the thoroughly transparent rush - to steal some political advantage at the expense of local elected officials on the Peninsula needs to be tempered by historical understanding. The supervisors and city council members who voted "yes" on regional transportation funding may have pushed it across the goal line, but they hardly get credit or blame for creating this thing. New taxes, fees and tolls, via the newly enacted authority, will be imposed upon the residents of 12 cities and counties of Hampton Roads in order to raise $168 million for long-overdue tunnels and roads. Think that stinks? Want to blame someone? Well, point your rage in the right direction.

20. ... LOOKING AHEAD
What voters can do about the new transportation authority

So it's all over but the paying and the paving, right? Or is it? ith Isle of Wight's vote on June 14, the new regional transportation authority is good to go. It will collect an array of fees and taxes laid out in a law passed by the General Assembly earlier this year, and apply them, along with tolls, to building a set of six major regional projects.

THE COMMONWEALTH Transportation Board has approved $11 billion for road and transit projects across Virginia from 2008 through 2013--a $3.1 billion increase over Virginia's comparable 2006 plan that reflects the funding increases implemented this year by the General Assembly and Gov. Kaine. Our region is slated for its share of goodies. Now to sit back and see how it all works out.

The unprecedented fracas at the Virginia Beach courthouse ? which erupted again on the front page of The Virginian-Pilot on Wednesday ? has already done enough to undermine public confidence in the judicial system. The city's nine Circuit Court judges have made a formal complaint about the commonwealth's attorney, who intimated before a political gathering that the jurists are skirting their duty to punish bad guys.

Extending Metro to Dulles Airport is like adding a room to your house: The price and timetable you get going into the project bear only a tangential relationship to reality. Along the way, you'll have to give up on those gold-standard materials. No matter how hard and fast the deal you thought you had with the contractor, somehow you'll end up with a different price -- and different means higher. But when you pick your contractor, you will certainly shy away from the guy you know was involved in massive cost overruns on your friend's basement. That's where Virginia and you part ways: To design Metro's extension from Falls Church to the airport, the state hired a consortium headed by Bechtel Corp., the company that managed perhaps the biggest construction fiasco in American history, Boston's Big Dig.

Two infants die in Virginia every day. Saving them will take many different kinds of action. Gov. Tim Kaine was on point when he said during his January State of the Commonwealth address that there is no excuse for a state with one of the nation's highest incomes to have so many babies die in the first year of life. There is no excuse for Virginia -- a state with the ninth-highest per capita income -- to have an infant mortality rate that ranks in the nation's bottom third.

Around Father's Day, I came to understand that law-and-order types will never prevail in the current immigration debate. A few weeks earlier, I recognized that the open-borders crowd (who might control my heart, though not my head) won't win this fight either.

This past winter ? and the winter before that, and the winter before that ? when "abuser fees" and a $10 hike in vehicle registration fees were still in the realm of the theoretical, we hoped that the General Assembly would come up with a more rational plan for funding Virginia's transportation needs ? a method that didn't rely on punishment to ensure a revenue stream, a method that addressed the issue fairly by making everyone ? tourists and passers-through from out of state as well as Virginians ? pay their fair share. Unfortunately, the "no taxes" contingent of the House of Delegates got its way with the enabling of Gov. Tim Kaine, who was apparently so desperate to have a transportation plan that he signed onto the whole mess, including the abuser fees.

Three environmental initiatives - one of them decidedly homegrown - deserve recognition. Two months ago, the University of Virginia Board of Visitors committed the school to construct all its new buildings to high standards of energy efficiency. All buildings will qualify for certification under Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards. The decision means that construction will cost a bit more up front, but will save society and the environment in the long run.

Martin Luther King said individuals should be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. A similar principle applies to museums. Although certain institutions occupy splendid surroundings (the Louvre, for instance, or the Philadelphia Museum of Art), the collections they house remain their most vital artistic and intellectual assets. Richmond's Museum of the Confederacy illustrates the phenomenon.

Susan Van Wagoner's relationship with the Piedmont Environmental Council while serving on the Rt. 50 Traffic Calming Task Force does not represent a conflict of interest, a Circuit Court judge ruled yesterday. Van Wagoner filed a civil suit in Loudoun Circuit Court seeking to nullify a December 2005 determination by Commonwealth's Attorney Jim Plowman that her dual roles amounted to a conflict of interest. She hoped to prove that Plowman didn't have the authority to issue the advisory opinion, but substitute Judge Albert Swersky said that according to state code, Plowman did indeed have that authority. However, Swersky also found that Plowman came to the wrong conclusion and that Van Wagoner's dual roles presented no conflict.

30. VIRGINIA'S FOLK COMMUNITY ON CENTER STAGE
National Mall will be site of event that will showcase state artists

Jamestown has dominated the limelight for the past year, but the rest of the commonwealth will get its due this week in Washington as the Smithsonian Institution pays tribute to "The Roots of Virginia Culture." Musicians, artisans, dancers, craftspeople, balladeers, farmers, laborers and culinary artists from across Virginia will demonstrate their skills at the Smithsonian's 41st annual Folklife Festival, which will be held on the National Mall from Wednesday through next Sunday and from July 4 through July 8.

31. NEW OFFICE WILL ENFORCE PAYMENT OF CHILD SUPPORT
The facility will ease case loads in Richmond, Petersburg, Henrico

Parents who last year failed to pay about $10 million owed in Chesterfield County child-support cases soon will have one fewer excuse. Later this summer, the state Department of Social Services' Division of Child Support Enforcement will open a district office in Chesterfield at Buford Road and Midlothian Turnpike.

Virginia motorists have more reasons to drive carefully after July 1 ? whopping new civil fees the General Assembly approved to help bail out the state?s transportation system. According to the legislation, passed as part of a state transportation bill, people found guilty of misdemeanor traffic offenses will be required to pay up to $2,250 in new civil fees in three installments over 26 months. People convicted of felony motor vehicle offenses will have to pay up to $3,000 during that period.

Damascus Police Chief Anthony Stephen Richardson was arrested today at the little Southwest Virginia town's police headquarters and charged with one count of selling methamphetamine. Richardson, 40, is accused of selling the drug June 12 to a confidential informant. He was arrested without incident and was to appear before a Washington County magistrate in Abingdon.

Abingdon, VA - The Damascus police chief was arrested Saturday and charged with distributing methamphetamine. Anthony Stephen Richardson, 40, was arrested without incident at the city police department, Virginia State Police Sgt. M.T. Conroy said.

35. POLICE CHIEF ARRESTED
Damascus' police chief has been charged with distributing a controlled substance.

The chief of police of Damascus was arrested Saturday and charged with distribution of a controlled substance, following a joint narcotics investigation by the Virginia State Police, the Washington County Sheriff's Office and the Abingdon Police Department, officials said. A news release issued by the Washington County Sheriff's Office reported that Chief Anthony Stephen Richardson, 40, was arrested without incident Saturday at the Damascus Police Department.

Damascus Police Chief Anthony Stephen Richardson was arrested this afternoon on drug charges at the department, according to a Washington County Sheriff's Office news release. Richardson, 40, was charged in connection with an undercover investigation that was initiated several months ago and involved drug purchases by a confidential informant. Richardson was charged with distribution of a Schedule II controlled substance -- methamphedamine, authorities said at an afternoon news conference.

While acknowledging that last week?s drug sweep only scratched the surface, city law enforcement officials called the removal of street level drug dealers a step in the right direction. The sting, called ?Operation Streetsweeper,? led to the arrest of about 40 people from neighborhoods throughout the city by Danville police officers and deputies from Pittsylvania County?s Sheriff?s Office.

38. COUNCIL'S LATEST ISSUE STIRS DEBATE
The location of a proposed Roanoke amphitheater could become an issue that carries over to the next election.

It took the Roanoke City Council more than a decade to decide to demolish Victory Stadium, which came down nearly a year ago. Vice Mayor David Trinkle hopes that the council's latest hot-button debate won't last quite as long.

39. ROCKBRIDGE TOWN STILL WITHOUT RUNNING WATER
June 13 lightning hit pumps, causing some pipes to crack

GOSHEN The mountain town of Goshen is learning to live without running water. A lightning strike June 13 struck pumps that force water through the Rockbridge County town's pipe system. As the water pressure decreased, some of the pipes cracked, forcing the shutdown of the system, which serves about 500 residents.

A federal jury deliberated just over four hours Thursday before reaching a unanimous verdict that the political activities of two Lee County school employees were motivating factors in the votes of the Lee County School Board as a whole and three of its members in demoting the two. Eleanor Chadwell, who was demoted from director of elementary programs to a reading specialist on Feb. 13, 2004, had alleged in her lawsuit that she was demoted solely because she supported Democratic candidates.

Central Stafford County may finally get the development long expected from its last five years of infrastructure improvements. A local company, G&G, proposes to build a commercial, retail and office park on 51 acres just off the Interstate 95 interchange for Stafford Regional Airport. The interchange opened in 2005, following the ribbon-cutting for the airport. Officials expected the two projects to promote commercial growth in that area.

42. ELECTRICITY GOES THROUGH ROOF
Architect fights cost of power via solar panels and sells the leftovers

Local architect Patrick Farley is an advocate of environmentally friendly building design and a pioneer of sorts. He's the first to install solar panels at a Richmond residence and sell the electricity produced to Dominion Virginia Power. Farley installed the panels on the southern-tilted roof of a shed/studio he is building behind his home.

Comments

issue # 7 LU students voter registration (martha - 6/24/2007 1:24:47 PM)

I can't believe that this issue is metioned here. I am a resident of Ward III in Lynchburg and it is already a very Republican ward in Lynchburg BUT if LU students register to vote the AT-LARGE council elections could become very interesting and the balance of power might shift to the Republicans.
We just gained a majority on council and, even though I am NOT happy w/ many decisions by the 2 Democratic at-large members, the Republican shift would be devastating to Lynchburg.Efforts to revitalize downtown have largely been spearheaded by the Dems on council.On the other hand the other Ward representatives on council have gladly allowed over development in Ward III over many objections by residents including myself.
Interesting that this story was picked up by this site since I have been concerned about the over-development of Lynchburg and specifically Ward III. This ward was annexed from Campbell County in the 70's and it is probably the only ward left in Lynchburg w/ any large tracts of land left undeveloped.The latest development projects have not been a smart use of land in my opinion.
LU students potentially could change things in Lynchburg. Many stay here in the city after graduation anyway so we don't need the present students adding to the conservative make-up of the city.