State and Local Stories
Megan Rhyne, VCOG’s Truth in the Field Blog
Chesterfield County School Board members have changed their public comment policy. The change will take effect immediately. Instead of being able to comment on each action item, residents can now speak during two public comment periods, as well as on items up for a public hearing. The first public comment period will come before action items and apply only to those items on the agenda. Action items are those on which School Board members vote. A second period, for non-agenda items, will come after School Board members have voted. Speakers will have three minutes to comment during those periods. Five speakers opposed the change at Tuesday’s meeting. Jenefer Hughes, who lives in the Midlothian District, said that sometimes School Board members have to face messages that may not be as positive.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
The contentious effort to remove Montgomery County’s circuit court clerk from office is alive again and headed to the Virginia Supreme Court. The court’s decision Friday to hear an appeal in the case came nearly 11 months after a circuit court judge dismissed the removal effort on procedural grounds. It comes almost two years after Democrat Erica Williams was elected to a second eight-year term as circuit clerk court and touched off a storm of criticism by dismissing some of her deputy clerks. The allegations in the removal effort — whether Williams acted wrongly in dismissing the deputy clerks — were not the subject of last year’s circuit court arguments in the case. They also won’t be the Supreme Court’s focus. Instead, the high court is likely to clarify Virginia’s requirements for petitions to remove elected officials.
Roanoke Times
An expert who gave a crash course in free speech law Tuesday to Virginia officials reviewing last month’s violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville said he believes authorities can restrict weapons as a condition of special-event permits without violating demonstrators’ constitutional rights. A presentation from Rodney A. Smolla, the dean of Widener University Delaware Law School and a former law school dean at the University of Richmond and Washington and Lee University, was the main event at the first meeting of a state task force reviewing policies surrounding civil unrest at the request of Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Halifax Planning Commission member Mike Sexton resigned last week from his post on the town’s planning commission, just days before a zoning permit was granted to the county to proceed with historic courthouse renovations. Sexton said Tuesday he decided to resign because he feels he has “gone about as far with the planning commission as I can.” “I feel like because this courthouse renovation project has gotten my interest up, I have become very disturbed about the way the county has excluded the public,” Sexton said. He added, this courthouse controversy has caused him to say things while on the planning commission “that I don’t think it was proper for me to do.” For that reason, he said he has resigned from the planning commission so he can voice his personal concerns without being a representative of the town planning commission.
Gazette-Virginian
National Stories
An Arkansas judge has issued a stay in Josh Duggar’s lawsuit against Springdale city officials over the release of information related to allegations he sexually abused his sisters while they were children. U.S. District Judge Tim Brooks said in an order issued Monday he would stay proceedings until he rules on the Springdale officials’ motion to dismiss the suit based on qualified immunity. Public officials are protected under qualified immunity from being sued for damages unless they violated “clearly established” law of which a reasonable official in his position would have known.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette