Monday, June 23, 2014
State and Local Stories
Between two and five CSX tanker trains loaded with 1 million gallons or more of flammable crude oil cross Virginia’s midsection weekly, taking a west-to-east route to a Yorktown refinery, state records show. No railroad has previously revealed its oil shipping volumes and routes in the state. But the U.S. Department of Transportation last month told the nation’s railroads that ship flammable Bakken crude oil to notify states of oil-filled trains moving within their borders as a safety precaution, effective this month. The first notice, received by the Virginia Department of Emergency Management about June 4, was made public Friday in response to a public records request.
News & Advance
The members of the Richmond School Board would have cried uncle, if only they’d had the energy. After 18 months of pushing hard, working late and generally ignoring the clock, if one existed at all, they finally hit the wall last week. Two of the nine members made a public call for shorter, more efficient meetings and, in an oddly demure moment for the group, no one argued the point. “I don’t want to be deciding the fate of someone at 2 a.m., based on the fact that I want to go home,” said Derik Jones of the 8th District, one of the members who called for an overhaul of how the board conducts its business. “That’s not fair to the employee, it’s not fair to the public, and it’s not fair to ourselves.” One of the sticking points in Richmond has been the amount of time that members are allowed to talk about a given topic. Gray suggested cutting the time from 10 minutes per topic to five and, in a move unknown on the School Board, enforcing the limit. “I think that’s one of things we all have to learn, that we don’t win every time,” he said. “When you don’t win, you have to accept it and move on. You can’t allow a single person to keep us all there all night because they didn’t win.”
Times-Dispatch
Wednesday's report by Williamsburg-James City County Schools exploring the feasibility of housing an International Baccalaureate program in the James Blair annex appears to have reached a conclusion before it was written. Emails obtained by the Gazette through a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that Superintendent Steven Constantino told senior administrators in a May 6 email, "I need the facts and rationale to shut this down. Please get together and finalize a rationale why having a 150 member IB middle school is not what we need." The final four-page report, titled "Repurposing of the James Blair Annex," was released to the School Board May 27, along with a note from Constantino saying "we are not releasing this report publicly at this time." It was released June 18 to representatives of the City of Williamsburg and James City County and the media.
Virginia Gazette
The group tasked with finding a place in greater Williamsburg where a new school could be built will meet Monday behind closed doors. That group, the seven-member Site Selection Committee, was appointed in May to advise the county administrator on matters of real estate for school construction. According to a June 19 email from assistant county administrator Adam Kinsman, the meetings are not open to the public or the press under the rules of Virginia's Freedom of Information Act. "Because this is a staff committee formed by the county administrator to advise the county administrator, it is not subject to FOIA," Kinsman explained in the email. "Even if it were subject to FOIA, the committee would conduct its business in closed session because it will be considering the acquisition of real property." Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, said in an email to the Gazette that the Site Selection Committee's plan to meet in closed session is legal, but not necessarily the best idea.
Virginia Gazette
Outraged citizens who want to rid the county of current Halifax County School Superintendent Dr. Merle Herndon have planted very clear messages in their front yards from Volens to Halifax. The signs, some painted red and others painted green, bluntly say “Fire Merle Herndon” and have been strategically placed on lawns along the route Herndon travels from her home in Naruna to central office in Halifax. Responsible for the signage and behind the superintendent ouster campaign is a citizen, who when contacted for comment, asked not to be identified and refused to speak on the record to a Gazette-Virginian reporter.
Gazette Virginian
Tuesday's Portsmouth City Council meeting will begin – for the first time – with a blessing in Sanskrit, spoken by a Hindu statesman from Nevada. After Rajan Zed reads from the ancient scriptures, he will translate the prayer into English. City Clerk Debra White researched City Council minutes."From the looks of it, we have not had a Hindu prayer," she said. Zed describes himself as a global Hindu and interfaith leader. In July 2007, Zed received national media attention after three people shouted protests as he gave the first-ever Hindu prayer for the U.S. Senate. Since then, he has offered prayers for local, state and federal government groups to raise awareness and educate others about the Hindu faith.
Virginian-Pilot
Former Virginia state senator Phillip P. Puckett (D-Russell) has hired a veteran former federal prosecutor to represent him as investigators probe the circumstances of his abrupt departure from the state legislature, the attorney said Friday. Thomas J. Bondurant Jr., now in private practice in Roanoke with the Gentry Locke Rakes & Moore law firm, said he first talked with Puckett on Thursday about the matter. He declined to say whether Puckett had spoken with federal investigators or had been served with a subpoena to testify before a grand jury.
Washington Post
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