Author: Peter Galuszka
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The Rehabilitation of Helen E. Dragas
By Peter Galuszka Call it the rehabilitation of Helen E. Dragas. Dragas, the head of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia, got into a big mess last spring when she tried and failed to oust popular university President Teresa Sullivan. After a national embarrassment, the reappointment of Dragas, a politically influential construction…
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How Bleak Are Virginia’s Ports, Exactly?
By Peter Galuszka Is there something fishy about Gov. Robert F. McDonnell’s push to privatize the Virginia Port Authority? For months, state Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton, privatization-minded corporate executives and some consulting firms have been beating a drum about the supposedly bad if not fatal fiscal outlook for the VPA and Virginia International Terminals, a…
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Uranium Mining on Slate.com
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in Business and Economy, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & TechnologyBy Peter Galuszka Just in time for your weekend reading, here’s a piece I did for Slate on the uranium mining controversy.
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Here Comes Cooch-ageddon!
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in Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Gun rights, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, LGBQT, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, Transportation, Water-waste waterHard right conservative Kenneth T. Cuccinelli has a very good chance of becoming the next governor. At least that’s my view 11 months out. I disagree with Cuccinelli on almost everything and will spare my readers the list. But I do agree on one thing: he has proved to be a wily politician. He’s turned…
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Sticking Southside With Uranium Mining
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in Business and Economy, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, TaxesBy Peter Galuszka If you are a resident of Pittsylvania County in Virginia’s Southside, you can be happy to know that some Richmond legislators and a few citizens want to restrict uranium mining exclusively to your county. Led by Republican State Sen. John Watkins of Powhatan, the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission voted 11-2 to…
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Oh, Canada!
By Peter Galuszka The rumbling started Saturday and reached a head on Sunday, resounding through the tall, loblolly pines like a distant thunderstorm that somehow got stuck in a downdraft and just wouldn’t move on. The curiosity was that the early January sky was a bright blue with only a few high clouds zipping by…
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The Conundrum of Exporting Natural Gas
By Peter Galuszka Energy firms and utilities are finding themselves in an odd and unexpected position because of the fast-changing dynamics of the natural gas market. In a blow to the Sierra Club, a Maryland judge has ruled that Richmond-based Dominion Resources can export liquefied natural gas from its Cove Point facility on the western…
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McDonnell: Get Real On Assault Rifles
By Peter Galuszka The usual attitudes are moving beyond infuriating. Year after year, Virginia politicians put enormous effort into expanding the presence of guns in state society, from allowing more than one purchase of a handgun each month to taking away the rights of localities to fingerprint people applying for concealed weapons permits. Now in…
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Is 2013 the Year of Bill Bolling?
By Peter Galuszka It’s not even 2013 year and the maneuvering in the gubernatorial race is mystifying, showing disarray in both political parties. Mild-mannered, former GOP loyalist Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling is showing new backbone that can only be taken to be mean he may well run as an independent now that he has abandoned…
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Time for a Talk on Gun Control
By Peter Galuszka Once more time, we have mass death by firearms perpetrated apparently by a man with severe mental illness. In this case, however, some 20 of the victims were schoolchildren roughly between the ages of five and 10. When the gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Ct., they were utterly helpless.…
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In Memory of A Remarkable Bishop
By Peter Galuszka One of Virginia’s most important religious leaders in decades who held firm to his liberal beliefs died Dec. 11 at age 84. Bishop Walter F. Sullivan, former head of the Diocese of Richmond, passed away after being ill with cancer. Bishop from 1970 until 2003, Sullivan was an anomaly in a conservative…
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Rise of the Machines?
By Peter Galuszka Economic regions go through natural iterations of what makes money and creates jobs. But that “what” can be transitional if not ephemeral. Consider industries for Dutch tulips or New England ice. Ditto Virginia. It’s been through tobacco, apples, battleships, retailing, furniture, textiles and moonshine. A couple of decades ago, with proponents of…
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Dragas, U.Va. Board Get Wrists Slapped
By Peter Galuszka Knocking down the Board of Visitors at the University of Virginia a tad, a regional college accrediting agency has issued a warning, its lowest level of disciplinary action, because of the way the BOV handled the forced firing and reinstatement of President Teresa Sullivan earlier this year. The Southern Association of Colleges…
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Is It Time to Get Rid of the MWAA?
By Peter Galuszka Many years ago, I started my first journalism job at a daily newspaper in a small town in North Carolina. It was a pleasant, sleepy place where the dominant clans were the Alligoods and the Woolards. If they married, they were known as “Wooligoods.” When you looked at the lists of employees…
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Is Offshore Wind Finally Twirling in Virginia?
By Peter Galuszka After years of hemming and hawing about offshore oil drilling, Virginia finally seems on track to develop wind energy off its coast. The U.S. Interior Department announced Nov. 30 that next year it would lease rights to 112,800 acres of ocean bed a little more than 23 miles off the southern part…