"So I say this to every department out there: Demand more."
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Chesterfield County’s Planning Commission grilled members of another arm of the county Tuesday: economic development officials who want an industrial “megasite” in the southeastern part of the county. Commissioners came with pages of questions that, at their heart, challenged a development approval process and the inherent risk when localities chase private prospects in the name of job creation. “The Economic Development Authority has been entrusted with taxpayer dollars to improve the economic base of this county, not at the expense of the citizens. So I say this to every department out there: Demand more. Sloan addressed this to the host of county department heads and economic development officials who have been crafting and mining the details of the proposal as it makes its way through the review process. By the final hour of the daylong work session, it was clear that commissioners wanted assurances and details that EDA officials and county department heads said they either didn’t have or couldn’t provide at this point in the review process and without an identified end user.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
The Newport News School Board will resume interviewing candidates for superintendent in the coming days, Chairman Gary Hunter announced during a meeting Tuesday night. That came after Hunter provided an update on the search thus far, weeks after the board first learned that the confidentiality of one of the candidates had been breached. Hunter’s update also came after member Jeff Stodghill asked the board to go into closed session to discuss the breach and its legal implications, which the Virginia School Boards Association Executive Director Gina Patterson told the board about in an email on March 26. After a few questions from board members, the motion was voted down 3-4, with Stodghill, Vice Chairman Carlton Ashby and Shelly Simonds voting for it. After being prodded by board member John Eley, Hunter said that the breach happened when a candidate who was not interviewed called a board member, asked why he or she was not interviewed and that board member cited the VSBA’s explanation as to why the person was not a viable candidate. Hunter told the Daily Press last week that he did not consider it to be a severe breach and that the VSBA was assured that the search should continue. Hunter also, which he said was in the interest of transparency, laid out the steps the board has taken since former Superintendent Ashby Kilgore announced her retirement in October.
Daily Press
Norfolk Councilman Tommy Smigiel and City Attorney Bernard Pishko did not commit crimes under the state’s conflict-of-interest law, according to a special prosecutor’s report issued Tuesday. The allegations stemmed from an incident involving the suspension of a community activist’s son from the school where Smigiel serves as principal. Michael Muhammad, a longtime activist, had a dispute with Smigiel in November 2015 over the whereabouts of his son, who attends the Academy for Discovery at Lakewood Middle School. The next day, after Muhammad filed a complaint about Smigiel with the School Board, his son was suspended from school for three days. Muhammad then filed Freedom of Information Act requests for emails about the incident and was told that some of them were being withheld based on attorney-client privilege between Pishko and the schools. After a year and a half, the emails were released. The allegations against Pishko, special prosecutor Michael Doucette wrote, are less clear. He said the incorrect assertion of attorney-client privilege doesn’t violate the state law, but “it may be a violation of some city policy or procedure.”
The Virginian-Pilot
In an order handed down this week, Rappahannock County Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey W. Parker has ruled against an Amissville resident who alleged, among other charges, that Rappahannock County Supervisor John Lesinski violated the state’s Conflict of Interests Act (COIA). Tom Woolman contended that Lesinski, in his official capacities as a former Rappahannock County School Board chairman and now as a Hampton district supervisor violated COIA either by not disqualifying himself from certain transactions or failing to disclose his economic interests in those transactions, as required by law. But Judge Parker, in his order dated April 9, found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the supervisor — now or during the period that he was a member of the school board.
Rappahannock News
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