The politics of teacher pay

Chris Graham

The Top Story by Chris Graham The group from John C. Myers Elementary School in Broadway was wrapping up its Thursday-afternoon field trip to downtown Harrisonburg when it happened upon a real-life civics lesson. Republican Party gubernatorial-nomination candidate Jerry Kilgore was at a Court Square eatery holding court with reporters on the issue of, yep,…

The ins and outs of homeowner tax relief

Chris Graham

The Top Story by Chris Graham It sounds like magic. The state comes in and guarantees that homeowners aren’t forced to bear the brunt of the tax burden for local governments, and, voila, it is done, and everybody is happy. Except for local-government officials, who have to figure out how to balance their books without…

The cost of homeowner tax relief: Will the burden be borne by business, industry?

Chris Graham

The Top Story by Chris Graham What’s good for residential property owners is not so good for business and industrial property owners. Not to mention local-government officials charged with the responsibilities of providing public services and balancing the books at the end of the day.

Why didn’t the feds let Chap talk? CIS, Petersen camp both claim politics at heart of dispute

Chris Graham

The Top Story by Chris Graham Democratic Party lieutenant-governor candidate Chap Petersen was supposed to deliver a brief talk to a group of new United States citizens on behalf of a nonpartisan lawyers’ group in Fairfax on Thursday. That was before a couple of phone calls from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services led to…

Faith issues front and center in governor’s race

Chris Graham

The Top Story by Chris Graham Tim Kaine doesn’t hide the fact that he is a Roman Catholic. “I am a Catholic, and I’m very serious about my faith,” said Kaine, Virginia’s lieutenant governor and the presumptive Democratic Party nominee to run for governor in the Commonwealth in the fall. “I took a year off…