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Bath County State Sen. Creigh Deeds announced today in an e-mail that he will run for re-election to his 25th District seat. “I am running for re-election because I am not finished,” said Deeds, who was the Democratic Party nominee for governor in 2009, losing that race in a landslide defeat to Republican Bob McDonnell….
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Gov. Bob McDonnell will call for $50 million in new higher-education spending in his amendments to the 2010-2012 state budget, he said today. McDonnell made the announcement as part of the rollout of Preparing for the Top Jobs of the 21st Century: The Virginia Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2011, a legislative package that he…
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David H. Shenk is leaving his home in Harrisonburg for South America on Sunday, Dec. 5, and doesn’t expect to return for two years. It’s a long time to be gone, but he’s ready to put into action that which he feels prepared to do. Shenk, 23, was born at Shenandoah Hospital in Woodstock, Va.,…
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I don’t personally have any issue with the notion that government needs to be run more efficiently and run more like a business. Anybody with experience managing a business or organization knows that there are inevitably inefficiencies that can be accounted for and corrected to make things run more smoothly. A problem I have is…
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This column is not for wine lovers. Rather, it is directed to my conservative friends who have no love for government, who think that all governments are nothing more than intrusions into our private lives, who never met a tax they liked and who believe that all public budgets should be filed under fiction. Sorry,…
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State Del. Ben Cline, R-24th District, announced today that he had received confirmation of recent actions by Virginia Lottery employees in which luxury skybox suite seats reserved for winners of the Redskins Legacy game were misused by Lottery staff. Cline also announced that he would be asking for an independent audit of the Virginia Lottery…
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“The federal government,” says Bill Howell, the speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, “has long ago usurped the power reserved to the states and the people via our Constitution.” Here we go again. Looks like we’re about to refight the Civil War. Howell is in Washington today to talk up something called the Repeal…
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Interest in collecting payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs) from charitable nonprofit organizations is likely to grow as cash-strapped municipalities seek additional revenue, according to a new report by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. But cities and towns should collaborate with colleges, universities, medical facilities and other nonprofits that are exempt from paying property…
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to review a ruling by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that allows restrictions on alcohol-related advertising in college publications in Virginia. However, arguments against the restrictions will continue in the lower courts. “We are disappointed that the Supreme Court decided not to hear this important First Amendment…
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Emmett Toms of Dominion Power recently presented a grant awarded to the Valley Alliance for Education for Darrell Steege’s project, “Bobwhite Quail Restoration Conservation Project.” Stuarts Draft High School students will be working on this project, which will examine the role that land use has played in the decline of the bobwhite quail locally.
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