A 15 percent raise awarded to City Manager Aretha Ferrell-Benavides has ignited public controversy and deepened divisions among Martinsville City Council members, with at least one council member indicating he will pursue a legal challenge. Following a May 6 community budget meeting, council member Aaron Rawls said that to his knowledge, there had not been a vote on the city manager’s salary increase, but he believes there should be. At the center of the dispute is what transpired during and after a March 17 council meeting, with council members offering vastly different recollections. “The initial meeting had nothing to do with the city manager’s pay,” Jones said. “It was a review of her, and not only was a review of her completed — it was a review from the year before.” He said Ferrell-Benavides never asked for a raise. According to Jones, after the council reconvened in open session, Vice Mayor Kathy Lawson first introduced a motion, which was withdrawn for more discussion. Council member Julian Mei then made a subsequent motion, which was passed. Rawls did not attend the meeting. Mei disputes that a vote occurred in open session. “No vote was taken in the public session on the 17, regardless of the erroneous meeting minutes that were released,” he said.

Hopewell is paying its interim city manager almost $21,000 a month until City Council hires a permanent replacement for the recently terminated Dr. Concetta Manker. A contract between council and the Robert Bobb Group, the advisory firm that had just completed a year-long makeover of Hopewell’s fiscal-management system, puts the monthly payment to RBG employee Michael Rogers at $20,833 effective May 1. The monthly payments – named as “fees” in the contract with RBG – will continue until a hire is made. Rogers is a former interim city manager in Charlottesville and former chief operating officer in Petersburg. The Progress-Index obtained a copy of Rogers’ contract through a Virginia Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] request on May 5 that was answered May 7.

The deadline for Loudoun County’s general registrar to complete certification of petitions to recall Purcellville’s mayor and three council members has been extended to May 15, according to Gary Clemens, clerk of the Loudoun County Circuit Court. Clemens provided the Times-Mirror with a copy of a court order approving an additional two-day extension for the general registrar to complete the certification process. Once the county’s general registrar is finished, the findings will be certified to Clemens’ office.

The Richmond Retirement System made at least $555,000 in erroneous payments to dozens of former city employees after they had died, according to a new audit report, and the city has been unable to recoup most of the money. The overpayments to deceased retirees occurred over nine years, and about $415,000 of the total has not been recovered by the city, according to the report released Friday by the office of City Auditor Riad Ali. One person was paid retirement benefits for seven years before RRS learned they had died in 2015, the report says. That added up to a $247,213 overpayment for a single account.

Data centers evoke strong and conflicting opinions. Advocates point to the truly significant revenue they can generate for local governments. Opponents point to data centers’ enormous energy needs, climate impacts, water use and their capacity to diminish the quality of life for residents living nearby. To weigh the costs and benefits of data centers and to set the ground rules for any potential data-center development, local governments should empower members of the public with all relevant information to foster a meaningful debate. We fear, however, that the widespread use of nondisclosure agreements and a larger ethic of secrecy regarding data center development curtails this discussion and, in so doing, impairs local democracy.

The government sent out a lot of mixed messages the week of December 16, 2024. In response to various apparent drone sightings in New Jersey, then-President Joe Biden said on December 17 that there was “nothing nefarious” in the sky. That same day, members of Congress came out of a classified briefing saying that the alleged drone sightings posed no threat to the public. Then, on December 18, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) imposed large flight restrictions backed by “deadly force” over New Jersey, and authorities announced they were investigating drone sightings over military bases across the country. On December 17, 2024, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) presented an internal slideshow demonstrating that three alleged drone incidents—one during a medevac flight, one over the ocean, and another near a nuclear plant—were simply normal air traffic. The Department of Homeland Security released the slideshow this week in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Originally, Reason had requested materials from the department’s closed-door briefing to local authorities on December 11, 2024, which had left New Jersey state Rep. Dawn Fantasia (R–Sussex) calling for a “military intervention.” Although the department didn’t provide that briefing to Reason, it did release TSA briefing materials from the following week.