Category: Governance
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If You Pay Full Price for Flood Insurance, Ask our City/County Manager Why
by James C. Sherlock There were lots of comments in my last post about government programs to mitigate flooding damage in flood plains, specifically about buying and tearing down houses that repeatedly flood. One of the carrots to do so is Community Rating System (CRS) discounts to flood insurance in communities that take an active…
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Elmer Gantry In Lynchburg
By Peter Galuszka The resignation of Jerry Falwell Jr. amid a series of scandals may have a strong impact in Virginia where his late father built an extraordinary, ultra-conservative evangelical university in Lynchburg that later became highly politicized lightning rod supporting President Donald Trump. Falwell has been caught up in a number of controversies including…
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Virginia Educational Reform – Place, Class, Race — Or All Three?
by James C. Sherlock I am an optimist by nature. Optimism wins elections, and optimism can bring about democratic change. Governments at their most basic level are created by people to protect themselves from outsiders and to minimize conflicts within their own ranks. From a condo association to Congress, that is a core role. …
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Democrats Govern in the Dark
by Shaun Kenney Del. Glenn Davis, R-Virginia Beach, was greeted with this notification as he attempted to log in for virtual voting: Whoops. Garren Shipley with the House Republican Caucus was more direct: Right now a member could be muted, attempting to get the Speaker's attention, and be ignored. The press and public would have…
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Stoney Justifies Statue Contract
by James A. Bacon The Stoney administration did not answer Bacon’s Rebellion requests for information when we were researching Mayor Levar Stoney’s awarding of a $1.8 million contract outside of Richmond’s procurement laws, but it did respond to the Richmond Times-Dispatch when the newspaper followed up on the revelations posted on this blog. Here’s how…
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The Gory Details of Levar Stoney’s Statue Contract
by James A. Bacon When Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney needed help taking down the city’s Confederate statues, he turned to Devon Henry, a prominent local construction contractor who had donated $4,000 to his 2016 mayoral campaign and political action committee. No local crane & rigging company in Virginia was willing to undertake the controversial project,…
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Attorney General Herring’s Legislative Package
by James C. Sherlock The Virginia Constitution (Article V, Section 5) assigns the Governor legislative duties. He is the only member of the Executive Department assigned such duties. The Attorney General has, well … none. Of the duties of the Attorney General (Article V, Section 15), the Virginia Constitutions says only: “He shall perform such…
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Public Employee Collective Bargaining – Questions for Attorney General Herring
by James C. Sherlock As a consequence of the successful teacher revolt in Fairfax County, there are major legal questions which must be answered concerning the initiation of public employee collective bargaining in Virginia next spring. In accordance with Virginia Code § 2.2-505, members of the General Assembly can request official opinions of the Attorney…
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Common Sense and Coronavirus in Virginia
by DJ Rippert Stepping back. Over the past five months there has been an unending flood of information, guesses, misinformation and politicized ramblings about COVID-19. Various factions put forth their experts and cherry picked data to support their agendas. It’s time to step back and synthesize all that has been written into a set of…
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Gerald Smith: Richmond’s New Top Cop
By Peter Galuszka FYI, here’s a piece I did for Style Weekly about Richmond’s new p0lice chief, the third in about a month, and his interpretation on the problems of law enforcement in this period of defunding.
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Northam Back-to-School Plan Unconstitutional, DeSteph Says
by James A. Bacon Wise King Ralph may have a problem with his back-to-school plan for this fall: Some of his subjects think it may be unconstitutional. Under the Governor’s directive, schools will return to something resembling normal in three phases. The most controversial part of the plan requires staggering classes so students attend in-person…
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The Ups and Downs of Felix Dzerzhinsky
By Peter Galuszka For three decades, a 15-ton statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky loomed over a square in downtown Moscow. He rose high near the Lubyanka building, a turn of the century, yellow-colored one-time insurance office that served as the national headquarters for the KGB. “Iron Felix,” born of Polish nobility, is best known as V.I.…
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Polybius, ANTIFA, and the Cycle of Discord
by Scott Lingamfelter When I awoke this morning, like many of you, I found myself genuinely concerned about what is going on in America. The violence, looting, the wanton destruction of life and property are both shocking and unacceptable. Most people are angry with the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a rogue…
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Virginia Regulations for the Licensure of Nursing Facilities Violate Virginia Law
James C. Sherlock The weaknesses of Virginia’s nursing facility (NF) and skilled nursing facility (SNF) system have been exposed by COVID-19 with deadly consequences. Virginia’s licensing regulations applicable to these facilities are both part of the problem and violate Virginia law. This essay recommends an straightforward permanent fix that will bring Virginia regulations into compliance…
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Our Gutsy Governor
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in Bacon and Pigs, Blogs and Blog Administration, Business and Economy, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Culture wars, Defense, National Security, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Efficiency in Government, Elections, General Assembly, Governance, Government Transparency, Government workers and pensions, Gun rights, Media, Politics, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t OversightBy Peter Galuszka On June 24, 2015, Nikki Haley, a Republican who was South Carolina’s first non-white governor, called for the removal of a Confederate flag that had been flying over the state’s capitol grounds for years. “This flag, while an integral part of our past, does not represent the future of our great state,”…