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The Local Beat column by Chris Graham [email protected] I remember being excited seeing the word Crimora on the six-year plan. I was a cub reporter at The News Virginian, and my beat included Augusta County government. I was still wet behind the ears, but I was far enough along that the editor was letting me…
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Story by Chris Graham [email protected] Virginia State Police are looking for multiple suspects in connection with a series of shootings on a stretch of Interstate 64 in Western Albemarle County that sent two people to the hospital. “We believe it’s more than one suspect. Now, that doesn’t mean that they were firing simultaneously at these…
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General Assembly Report column by Del. Ben Cline With just over two weeks to go, we are beginning to see which bills are going to succeed this session, and which are going to fall just short. Out of more than 3,000 bills that are introduced, only about 30 percent of them are enacted into law….
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Story by Chris Graham [email protected] The New Jersey Turnpike in the Shenandoah Valley. That’s what critics of the Virginia Department of Transportation’s Interstate 81 widening plan envision happening if the engineers get their wishes. “For us, our mission is to protect farms, forests, open spaces and cultural heritage – and this is impacting all of…
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Winners and Losers column by Chris Graham [email protected] LOSER: Waynesboro about to lose its mayor Tom Reynolds announced his retirement effective June 30 from Waynesboro City Council. Reynolds was instrumental in having the city council think long-range – to his own detriment, if you judge the controversy that foes of his forward thinking raised in…
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Op-Ed by Kim Sandum Just before Christmas, some of the people I work with sued the Virginia Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration over plans to expand I-81. It needed to be done. The story of I-81 is a cautionary tale for the rest of Virginia about a state agency that too often…
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Story by Chris Graham [email protected] A lawsuit is not a great option when your goal is to get government to reconsider what it’s doing relative to a road project. But the group that filed suit in federal court in Charlottesville on Monday to block further movement toward a massive reconstruction of Interstate 81 in Western…
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Winners and Losers column by Chris Graham [email protected] PUSH: VDOT and I-81 I dunno – seems to me that when citizens groups are resorting to filing lawsuits to try to block something that a government agency is doing, they must be feeling that the political process isn’t working the way they want it to. |That’s…
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Story by Chris Graham [email protected] The short-term worry is about a planned seven-mile improvement project on Interstate 81 in Rockbridge County. The longer-term worry is about the rest of the 325 miles of I-81 in Western Virginia. “That’s the biggest concern that I have – because this seven-mile project, while it is overly broad, and…
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Story by Chris Graham [email protected] An accident that killed a mother and her two young daughters in Nelson County this summer happened 75 yards from the front door of Tommy Stafford’s office. “We knew we needed to do something,” said Stafford, the founder of Project151.org, a web portal that is serving as a launching pad…
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