Tuesday
February 21, 2023
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state & local news stories
VCOG’s annual conference
FOI Day — March 16
Charlottesville
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A proposal that could have led to fewer appointed school boards in Virginia by allowing voters to decide by referendum if their local board should be elected died in the Senate Friday. Senators killed House Bill 1574, which would have impacted 15 school boards, with an 11-27 vote. Some of the remaining appointed boards have come under fire in recent years from citizens frustrated with issues such as COVID-19 and transgender student policies. Groups including the Virginia NAACP and ACLU of Virginia have also urged school systems to move toward elected school boards. The proposed legislation would have let local governments petition a circuit court for a referendum asking voters if the school board should be elected. A supermajority of the local governing body would have been required to back the petition.
Virginia Mercury
stories of national interest
A professor at the University of Albany who frequently testifies against Monsanto Co. in lawsuits alleging harm from toxic environmental pollutants called PCBs says that after a Monsanto lawyer filed a records request with his university, the university barred him from campus and offered him a resignation deal. Monsanto, owned by Germany-based Bayer, said in a statement that it was “simply seeking information related to Dr. Carpenter’s research activities and their funding so that any potential conflicts are transparent and properly disclosed to juries, as well as to medical and scientific journals in which he has published.”
Inside Higher Ed
When C.W. Hamilton took out his first student loan in 1977, the Education Department wasn’t even a federal agency. The $5,250 he borrowed to complete an associate’s degree at Cochise College in Arizona was supposed to be an investment in his future, not a lifelong burden. Yet after more than 40 years of payments and bouts of default, Hamilton still owes almost as much as he first borrowed. “I live on peanuts. … I can never get from underneath this debt.” There are nearly 47,000 people like Hamilton who have been in repayment on their federal student loans for at least 40 years, according to data obtained from the Education Department through a Freedom of Information Act request. About 82 percent of them are in default on their loans, meaning they haven’t made a voluntary payment in at least 270 days.
The Washington Post
editorials & columns
Last fall, a Republican slate swept the city’s elections, giving Lynchburg a Republican majority on the city council for the first time in two decades. If anyone expected that 5-2 Republican majority to steamroll its way through, guess again. The Republicans have been hissing at one another worse than my two cats hiss at each other, with the difference being that at least my two cats eventually make up. The Republicans’ differences were on full display at their very first meeting, when it came time to elect a mayor. And then there was last Tuesday’s council meeting, a Valentine’s Day meeting where there wasn’t much love to be seen. According to a video of the meeting, Lynchburg’s council spent about half of its 57-minute public meeting simply trying to adopt an agenda. Some other observations, which extend far beyond the Hill City: Local governing bodies are not corporate boards where it’s useful for everyone to agree; they are mini-legislatures where honest disagreements ought to be welcomed. Members still ought to be able to disagree in an agreeable way.
Dwayne Yancey, Cardinal News