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Sen. Amanda Chase has dropped a resolution directing the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) to study the practices, procedures, and accountability of industrial development authorities.
SJ13, on VCOG’s bill tracking chart
On the third floor of a Chesapeake courthouse, deep within the clerk’s office, centuries of local history rest in stacks on shelves. There are books and plats and maps. Records of births and deaths and marriages. Standing in front of a door marked “MAP STORAGE,” Circuit Court Clerk Alan Krasnoff gestured to follow him. “Come here,” he said. “Let me show you this.” He stepped into the room, pulling a flat, gray book from the pile. Inside: A plat that is perhaps, he said, the longest in the commonwealth. It’s for the 22-mile-long Dismal Swamp Canal and measures 704 inches — almost 59 feet — when unfurled, end to end. Like many of Chesapeake’s aged records, the pages are brittle and yellowed, the script now a faded brown. Splotches dot its binding. Some of the old books here smell faintly of vinegar — acid in the pages and ink that’s deteriorated with time. Now, efforts are underway to restore the documents, some of which are more than 380 years old. With help from a grant, the Chesapeake Circuit Court clerk’s office is sending off old records to be repaired, a project that will preserve the city’s history and breathe new life into the stories of those who lived here long ago, Krasnoff said.
The Virginian-Pilot
More money for affordable housing and regional transit projects tops the legislative wish lists compiled by Northern Virginia officials, as the new-look state legislature prepares to return to Richmond next month. With Virginia Democrats newly empowered, seizing control of the General Assembly for the first time in a generation, their counterparts in local government see new hope for priorities long stymied by Republicans in Richmond. In legislative agendas, county supervisors and city councilors are laying out some of those priorities, with plenty of agreement on top areas for focus when the legislature reconvenes Jan. 8. Loudoun County seeks an amendment to the state’s Freedom of Information Act allowing localities to block the release of records “related to the negotiation and approval of an affordable housing loan application submitted to a locality.”
Washington Business Journal
Eight hundred pages of documents provided to an activist group show George Mason University law school’s yearslong relationship with a supporter of climate-change skeptics.
The Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription only)
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