A Virginia legislator wants to know a whole lot more about how the state’s largest police agency has been spending its money. In a letter earlier this month, state Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, asked Virginia State Police Superintendent Matt Hanley for a detailed accounting of how the agency spends its $550 million budget. Ebbin asked Hanley for answers on 43 different areas of the agency’s budget, probing for details on how many lawsuits the agency has settled, which personnel get “luxury” department vehicles and whether key programs established by legislators remain staffed as intended. The probe comes against a backdrop of prospective belt-tightening by Virginia Democrats as they prepare to take over the Governor’s mansion and both chambers of the General Assembly. The state is expected to be short at least $1.3 billion in discretionary spending, in part because of tax cuts passed by the federal government this summer.

The Warrenton Town Council on Monday further displayed signs of internal division during a turbulent special meeting convened to address citizen ethics complaints, with recent upheaval continuing at the town manager and town attorney positions. The special meeting came in light of the council’s Oct. 14 dismissal of Town Manager Frank Cassidy without cause, which was sealed by a 4-3 vote and prompted condemnation from Mayor Carter Nevill. At the meeting’s outset, Ward 5 Councilmember Eric Gagnon questioned the legality of a recent email exchange spearheaded by Ward 4 Councilmember Michele O’Halloran that called for the special meeting, which he claimed violated Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act as it consisted of de facto “votes” to schedule a meeting. “Typically, Virginia FOIA deals with substantive communications,” said Chap Petersen, the town attorney. “Nothing that I see here constitutes a violation of Virginia FOIA.”

Smithfield’s Town Council deferred voting Nov. 5 on whether to rezone the former V.W. Joyner meatpacking plant site on Main Street after three council members said they agreed with recommendations by the town’s Planning Commission that weren’t included in the required public hearing advertisement. When Smithfield’s Planning Commission gave its ascent last month to the town’s proposal to rezone from “industrial” to “downtown” just under an acre fronting Main and Cedar Streets where the former Joyner meatpacking plant once stood, the commissioners included in their unanimous recommendation two conditions aimed at deterring a future sale of the land for residential development….But the Planning Commission’s recommendations weren’t included in the public notice advertising a required Town Council public hearing. That notice, published in the Times’ Oct. 29 edition, still called for the land to be split into two parcels with 315 Main St., which the town leases to the owners of the “When Pigs Fly Magic Happens” gift shop, designated as downtown mixed-use on the town’s future land use map and the undeveloped lot fronting Cedar Street zoned as historic district residential.

Stafford County’s emerging practice of routing media questions for elected officials through government staff is not just a change in communication strategy — it is a direct threat to transparency. It creates a wall between residents and their representatives, insulating leaders from basic accountability and weakening the democratic norms that make local government work. This gatekeeping did not appear in a vacuum. After more than a year of declining interview requests, Potomac Local approached Garrisonville District Supervisor Dr. Pamela Yeung at a ribbon-cutting event earlier this month, a perfectly normal practice in local journalism and civic life. We asked two reasonable questions any voter would expect their news reporter to ask: Why did she abstain from such a critical vote, and why did her campaign mailer claim she had “secured a new movie theater” for The Garrison when the developer publicly said no contract exists? At the Board of Supervisors’ November 18 meeting, she escalated further. Yeung said reporters should not approach her at public events, should not “put mics in my face,” and should not “follow me to my car.” She claimed such interactions are “dangerous” and could lead to “someone getting hurt.”