Registrars in localities across Virginia are preparing to administer the April 21 redistricting referendum in an uncertain landscape as court battles play out, seeking to determine the constitutionality and timing of the effort. 

The General Assembly last week passed legislation that set the April 21 date for the redistricting referendum. With early voting set to begin March 6, registrars say they have been left with no choice but to forge ahead with preparations unless the state Department of Elections, or a court, orders them to stop. 

“The Botetourt County Department of Elections and Voter Registration is required by law to follow all legislation passed by the General Assembly,” said Botetourt County Registrar Traci Clark in an email on Wednesday. “It is our duty to plan, prepare, and administer this special election until otherwise instructed by a court ruling or further legislation from the General Assembly.”

Regardless, multiple court cases still outstanding have given some pause, specifically in Tazewell County, where two of the lawsuits were filed. 

Preparations were well underway in the Tazewell County registrar’s office when the county circuit court issued an order on Feb. 19 to halt that work, said county registrar Brian Earls. 

“The order specifically names me and temporarily restrains me from ‘administering, preparing for, taking any action to further the procedure of the referendum, or otherwise moving forward with causing an election to be held on the proposed constitutional amendment,’” Earls said. “I have no intention of violating the court’s order.”

A rocky and uncertain legal landscape

First came a complaint filed in the Tazewell County Circuit Court, which sought a ruling on the constitutionality of the redistricting effort. Chief Judge Jack Hurley Jr. sided with the plaintiffs — three Republican lawmakers — in a January ruling that temporarily halted the redistricting effort. That ruling was appealed by Democrats to the Supreme Court of Virginia and determined to only apply to Tazewell County. The Supreme Court determined that the April 21 referendum can move forward as it prepares to hear the appeal after the election. 

Then, in February, a second complaint was filed in Tazewell County by the National Republican Congressional Committee and other conservative groups. Hurley again ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. The second ruling was more sweeping and specifically told state officials to stop “administering, preparing for, taking any action to further the procedure for the referendum or otherwise move forward with causing an election” on the grounds that the legislation behind the redistricting is riddled with legal problems. Attorney General Jay Jones, a Democrat, has appealed the ruling.

On Friday, the day after the second Tazewell court order was issued, Earls and other registrars received notice from the Virginia Department of Elections that directed them to pause issuing ballots for that election until further notice.

On Tuesday, registrars received a follow-up communication from the state department that said, upon further review, the court’s order applies only to the named defendants, including local election officials in Tazewell County. The prior request to pause ballot issuance was withdrawn for other localities, but remained in place in Tazewell. 

In the meantime, a number of governing bodies in Republican-leaning localities across Southwest and Southside have issued and voted in support of resolutions to halt the referendum in their locality in an effort to force the state’s high court to rule before the referendum. 

On Tuesday, the Lynchburg City Council passed a resolution to seek a judge’s guidance on how to proceed with respect to the referendum. The city council ordered attorney Tim Anderson, a former Republican state delegate from Virginia Beach, to prepare and file a petition for declaratory judgment in the Lynchburg Circuit Court that seeks “judicial clarification of the City’s and its election officials’ legal duties” regarding the April 21 referendum. 

City registrar Daniel Pense said his office is a party in that case. His staff is getting ready for the March 6 early voting start date in some ways, but is limited in its preparations without clarification from and engagement of the Department of Elections, he said. The office awaits the ruling of Circuit Judge Patrick Yeatts, which is expected Monday. 

And on Thursday, a complaint was filed by a citizen, Joshua Caleb Shiver, in Washington County Circuit Court that asked the court to rule on the constitutionality of the redistricting effort. A hearing date has not yet been set in that case. 

What’s happening in other localities? 

Prior to the second Tazewell court order, Earls had posted a public notice on the county registrar’s Facebook page outlining the location, dates and hours for early voting in the April 21 special election, as well as the ballot drop box location. Preparations for absentee-by-mail ballots were underway, though no ballots had been issued before the order was entered, he said. 

Now, his actions are bound by the court’s order as his office waits in limbo for further guidance from the court or the Department of Elections. 

In the Roanoke County registrar’s office, the plan is to carry on with business as usual unless a court with jurisdiction over Roanoke County tells the office that it cannot continue with the election. 

“We will make voting available to Roanoke County voters in accordance with the schedule set by the General Assembly and provided to us by [the Virginia Department of Elections],” said county registrar Anna Cloeter. 

Early voting is slated to begin in the Roanoke County registrar’s office at 8 a.m. March 6, and absentee ballots will be mailed out to all registered voters with valid requests on file by close of business that day as required by law, Cloeter said. 

The Patrick County registrar’s office plans to begin early voting on March 6 as well, said Susan Taylor, the county registrar — despite a vote last week by the county’s board of supervisors in support of a resolution barring the office from administering early voting.

“Early voting will begin on March 6, 2026. We will proceed with the early voting process as required by law,” Taylor said, when asked about the board’s action. 

Taylor added that her office is not concerned about the ongoing court battles and that she and her staff “will prepare and administer this election just as we would any other election.”

Radford registrar Lindsey Williams said her office is moving forward with early voting as scheduled as well. 

The post Registrars forge ahead with early voting preparations as redistricting court cases loom  appeared first on Cardinal News.

Registrars in localities across Virginia are preparing to administer the April 21 redistricting referendum in an uncertain landscape as court battles play out, seeking to determine the constitutionality and timing of the effort. 

The General Assembly last week passed legislation that set the April 21 date for the redistricting referendum. With early voting set to begin March 6, registrars say they have been left with no choice but to forge ahead with preparations unless the state Department of Elections, or a court, orders them to stop. 

“The Botetourt County Department of Elections and Voter Registration is required by law to follow all legislation passed by the General Assembly,” said Botetourt County Registrar Traci Clark in an email on Wednesday. “It is our duty to plan, prepare, and administer this special election until otherwise instructed by a court ruling or further legislation from the General Assembly.”

Regardless, multiple court cases still outstanding have given some pause, specifically in Tazewell County, where two of the lawsuits were filed. 

Preparations were well underway in the Tazewell County registrar’s office when the county circuit court issued an order on Feb. 19 to halt that work, said county registrar Brian Earls. 

“The order specifically names me and temporarily restrains me from ‘administering, preparing for, taking any action to further the procedure of the referendum, or otherwise moving forward with causing an election to be held on the proposed constitutional amendment,’” Earls said. “I have no intention of violating the court’s order.”

A rocky and uncertain legal landscape

First came a complaint filed in the Tazewell County Circuit Court, which sought a ruling on the constitutionality of the redistricting effort. Chief Judge Jack Hurley Jr. sided with the plaintiffs — three Republican lawmakers — in a January ruling that temporarily halted the redistricting effort. That ruling was appealed by Democrats to the Supreme Court of Virginia and determined to only apply to Tazewell County. The Supreme Court determined that the April 21 referendum can move forward as it prepares to hear the appeal after the election. 

Then, in February, a second complaint was filed in Tazewell County by the National Republican Congressional Committee and other conservative groups. Hurley again ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. The second ruling was more sweeping and specifically told state officials to stop “administering, preparing for, taking any action to further the procedure for the referendum or otherwise move forward with causing an election” on the grounds that the legislation behind the redistricting is riddled with legal problems. Attorney General Jay Jones, a Democrat, has appealed the ruling.

On Friday, the day after the second Tazewell court order was issued, Earls and other registrars received notice from the Virginia Department of Elections that directed them to pause issuing ballots for that election until further notice.

On Tuesday, registrars received a follow-up communication from the state department that said, upon further review, the court’s order applies only to the named defendants, including local election officials in Tazewell County. The prior request to pause ballot issuance was withdrawn for other localities, but remained in place in Tazewell. 

In the meantime, a number of governing bodies in Republican-leaning localities across Southwest and Southside have issued and voted in support of resolutions to halt the referendum in their locality in an effort to force the state’s high court to rule before the referendum. 

On Tuesday, the Lynchburg City Council passed a resolution to seek a judge’s guidance on how to proceed with respect to the referendum. The city council ordered attorney Tim Anderson, a former Republican state delegate from Virginia Beach, to prepare and file a petition for declaratory judgment in the Lynchburg Circuit Court that seeks “judicial clarification of the City’s and its election officials’ legal duties” regarding the April 21 referendum. 

City registrar Daniel Pense said his office is a party in that case. His staff is getting ready for the March 6 early voting start date in some ways, but is limited in its preparations without clarification from and engagement of the Department of Elections, he said. The office awaits the ruling of Circuit Judge Patrick Yeatts, which is expected Monday. 

And on Thursday, a complaint was filed by a citizen, Joshua Caleb Shiver, in Washington County Circuit Court that asked the court to rule on the constitutionality of the redistricting effort. A hearing date has not yet been set in that case. 

What’s happening in other localities? 

Prior to the second Tazewell court order, Earls had posted a public notice on the county registrar’s Facebook page outlining the location, dates and hours for early voting in the April 21 special election, as well as the ballot drop box location. Preparations for absentee-by-mail ballots were underway, though no ballots had been issued before the order was entered, he said. 

Now, his actions are bound by the court’s order as his office waits in limbo for further guidance from the court or the Department of Elections. 

In the Roanoke County registrar’s office, the plan is to carry on with business as usual unless a court with jurisdiction over Roanoke County tells the office that it cannot continue with the election. 

“We will make voting available to Roanoke County voters in accordance with the schedule set by the General Assembly and provided to us by [the Virginia Department of Elections],” said county registrar Anna Cloeter. 

Early voting is slated to begin in the Roanoke County registrar’s office at 8 a.m. March 6, and absentee ballots will be mailed out to all registered voters with valid requests on file by close of business that day as required by law, Cloeter said. 

The Patrick County registrar’s office plans to begin early voting on March 6 as well, said Susan Taylor, the county registrar — despite a vote last week by the county’s board of supervisors in support of a resolution barring the office from administering early voting.

“Early voting will begin on March 6, 2026. We will proceed with the early voting process as required by law,” Taylor said, when asked about the board’s action. 

Taylor added that her office is not concerned about the ongoing court battles and that she and her staff “will prepare and administer this election just as we would any other election.”

Radford registrar Lindsey Williams said her office is moving forward with early voting as scheduled as well. 

The post Registrars forge ahead with early voting preparations as redistricting court cases loom  appeared first on Cardinal News.

Want more on Virginia’s population trends? We’ve collected all our demographic coverage in one place.

For the past two days, I’ve been looking at the latest population estimates for Virginia, which come from the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia. 

On Wednesday, I looked at how Fairfax County’s population losses are accelerating while population growth downstate is growing.

On Thursday, I looked at how both these population trends are driven by people moving, rather than births and deaths. Virtually all of rural Virginia now sees more people moving in than moving out, a reversal of some generations-long trends. Many of those places are still losing population because, with an aging population, deaths outnumber both births and the new residents, but those population losses are slowing.

Today, I’ll delve deeper into the numbers and make some comparisons to put some of them in context. First, though, allow me a moment of geekdom. The word “delve” always reminds me of the line from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” where Gandalf the wizard was describing why the dwarves’ attempt at mining in Moria ended in catastrophe: “They delved too greedily and too deep, and disturbed that from which they fled.” Ideally, I will awaken no Balrog, an evil entity of fire and shadow, from these numbers, although you never can tell.

More people have moved out of Fairfax County than all of rural Virginia put together

It’s not even close. Fairfax County has lost only 2,795 people; that is just a 0.2% decline in a county that size, but, as I’ve pointed out before, this is historically huge because this is a county that hasn’t lost population since the 1820s. That bottom-line number masks what’s really happening: More people are moving out of Fairfax than are moving in, and the numbers are big. From 2020 to 2025, Fairfax had 38,495 more people move out than move in. That number has been almost, but not quite, balanced out by births exceeding both deaths and the moving van, but that’s still a lot of people moving out. That’s the equivalent of Gloucester County or Tazewell County just disappearing.

We’ve historically thought of rural Virginia as the place where people are moving out, but that’s no longer true: It’s the urban crescent, or, more accurately, parts of the urban crescent. Only four rural counties saw net out-migration: Buchanan, Dickenson, Henry and Wise. Between them, they had a net out-migration of 1,204.

Fairfax County’s outmigration is now almost 32 times more than all of rural Virginia.

Virginia Beach has lost more population than any other locality in the state

Again, this doesn’t show up on a percentage scale — just a 1.2% decline since 2020 — but in terms of actual numbers, Virginia Beach has lost more residents than anywhere else. It’s down 5,682 people. That’s also as much as the coal counties of Southwest Virginia combined: Buchanan, Dickenson, Lee, Russell, Scott, Tazewell and Wise, plus the city of Norton. Together they’ve lost 6,173.

As with Fairfax County, Virginia Beach’s problem is people moving out. Since 2020, the beach has had 12,522 more people leave than move in. Only Fairfax County has seen a bigger net exodus.

Almost all of Fairfax’s departures have been balanced by births, but only about half of Virginia Beach’s have.

Newport News posts Virginia’s second biggest population decline 

After Virginia Beach, the locality with the second-biggest population decline, on a numerical basis, is Newport News. That city’s population has dropped by 3,412 since the last census (although on a percentage basis, that’s just a 1.8% decline). We see a profile similar to Virginia Beach: Newport News has the third-highest population outflows in the state — 6,665 more people have moved out than moved in since 2020, a figure topped only by Fairfax County and Virginia Beach. As with Virginia Beach, births over deaths are high enough that they mitigate some, but not all, of that net out-migration. That brings us to this big picture:

Five of the seven cities in Hampton Roads have out-migration

Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Virginia Beach all have more people moving out than moving in. Only Chesapeake and Suffolk have net in-migration. However, the net in-migration in Chesapeake and Suffolk together still adds up to less than Virginia Beach’s out-migration, so the overall migration in and out of Hampton Roads is on the outflow side. Births over deaths make up for that, though, just barely. That’s why the overall population growth in Hampton Roads is just 1.0% since 2020. 

Now, for some good news:

Southwest Virginia’s coal counties may finally be seeing the end of out-migration

The coal counties are on the verge of a historic turnaround. They’re all still losing population, as they have been for decades now, but that can’t really be helped. All have aging populations, and deaths outnumber births by large margins. What is changing is that more people are now moving into most of these counties than are moving out — and this trend is accelerating. The numbers aren’t big enough to overcome those death figures, but this net in-migration seems a vote of confidence in the marketplace.

Lee County, Norton and Scott County have had net in-migration for several years now. These latest population estimates show that Russell County and Tazewell County have flipped from net out-migration to net in-migration in the past year. That leaves just Buchanan County, Dickenson County and Wise County with more people moving out than moving in, but in each locality, the gap is narrowing.

Last year’s estimates had Wise County at -228 from 2020 to 2024; now it’s at -92 for 2020 to 2025.

Dickenson County has gone from -177 last year to -97 in the new estimates.

Buchanan County has gone from -445 last year to -287 now.

If those trendlines continue, it seems likely that Dickenson and Wise may flip into the in-migration category soon; Buchanan may take a while longer.

It’s impossible from these stats to know whether this means more people are moving in or just that fewer people are moving out. Either way, the trends here are encouraging ones for the region.

Lynchburg is the baby capital of the western part of Virginia 

About two-thirds of Virginia’s population growth comes from people moving into the state, not people being born. Not surprisingly, where Virginia’s population is older (such as rural Virginia), deaths outnumber births. Where it’s younger (the urban crescent), births outnumber deaths. 

The one geographic exception is Lynchburg, where births exceed deaths by 402. That’s also not surprising; Lynchburg has the fifth-youngest median age of any locality in Virginia. Still, it makes Lynchburg quite different from other communities on the western side of the state. 

Danville gets the attention for being the ‘comeback city,’ but pay attention to the rest of Southside, too

Danville, which had been losing population since 1990, is now gaining population again — thanks to an especially strong rate of in-migration that is bigger than that of all but three other cities in Virginia. See Thursday’s column for the details on that. However, we really need to look at what’s happening across most of the southern tier of Virginia between Hampton Roads and the Blue Ridge. 

In the 2020 census, every locality along the state’s southern border, from Southampton County to Patrick County, lost population. They weren’t the largest population losses in the state (those were in Southwest), but some were close. 

In these estimates, which cover 2020 to 2025, Danville, Martinsville and Mecklenburg County are now posting population increases. All still see deaths outnumber births, but net in-migration is strong enough to make up for that. Martinsville’s population growth, while far more modest than Danville’s in numerical terms, is actually higher on a percentage basis — and more historic. Martinsville has been losing population since the 1970s. Now it’s not. (Danville has added 614 people, a 1.4% increase. Martinsville has added 226 people, a 1.7% increase.) 

Mecklenburg County, which lost 7.4% of its population in the decade prior to the 2020 headcount, is now on the plus side by 0.2%. Other border communities are still losing population, just not nearly as much. Brunswick County lost 9.09% of its population in the 2020 census; now it’s down by only 0.2%.

The details are consistent in these counties: More people are moving in, and that’s making up for population losses by death. If these trends continue, it appears likely that more of these Southside localities will start gaining population.

Henry County needs more young parents moving in

The one exception to these trends along the North Carolina border is Henry County. Its rate of population decline from 2020-2025 now exceeds that of 2010-2020. In the last census, Henry lost 5.9% of its population; now it’s at -6.0%. Three-fourths of Henry’s population decline is driven by deaths. The county has had 2,318 more deaths than births; that’s the highest such figure in the state. It’s unclear why Henry’s figure is so high, although it’s probably more related to a declining birth rate than an unusual number of people dying. What’s unusual about Henry is that it’s one of just four rural localities in the state (the others are in coal country) that have more people moving out than moving in. Its out-migration numbers are higher than any of the other three. That’s the real mystery: Why isn’t Henry attracting more newcomers? If it did, the county would likely have more births, which would mitigate those death figures. Part of the solution could be next door in Pittsylvania: As more tenants are attracted to the Southern Virginia Megasite, those companies will need more workers, and some will likely locate nearby in Henry. The other part is closer to home: the Commonwealth Crossing industrial park in Henry County. 

These population trends have policy implications

They say demographics are destiny. They also represent both challenges and opportunities for our government leaders — local, state and federal. Here’s how some of these trends might play out:

If you’re a Henry County official, you need to figure out how to attract more residents, but especially young parents or parents-to-be. If you’re a Danville official, you need to stay the course of what you’ve been doing because it’s clearly working. 

If you’re, say, the governor, you need to be concerned that Fairfax County (the biggest locality in our biggest metro) and Hampton Roads (our second-biggest metro) are seeing more people move out than move in. These are our two biggest economic engines, but they seem to be sputtering demographically. You can be pleased that statewide, Virginia is seeing in-migration pick up — especially in almost all rural areas. However, Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads are trouble spots that would seem to demand special attention. We should give our new governor time to get through her first legislative session, but at some point afterwards, these are things I’d like to ask her about.

Want more politics and analysis? Sign up for West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter that goes out on Fridays. Sign up here:

The post New population estimates: 32 times more people have moved out of Fairfax County than out of all rural Virginia appeared first on Cardinal News.

Want more on Virginia’s population trends? We’ve collected all our demographic coverage in one place.

For the past two days, I’ve been looking at the latest population estimates for Virginia, which come from the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia. 

On Wednesday, I looked at how Fairfax County’s population losses are accelerating while population growth downstate is growing.

On Thursday, I looked at how both these population trends are driven by people moving, rather than births and deaths. Virtually all of rural Virginia now sees more people moving in than moving out, a reversal of some generations-long trends. Many of those places are still losing population because, with an aging population, deaths outnumber both births and the new residents, but those population losses are slowing.

Today, I’ll delve deeper into the numbers and make some comparisons to put some of them in context. First, though, allow me a moment of geekdom. The word “delve” always reminds me of the line from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” where Gandalf the wizard was describing why the dwarves’ attempt at mining in Moria ended in catastrophe: “They delved too greedily and too deep, and disturbed that from which they fled.” Ideally, I will awaken no Balrog, an evil entity of fire and shadow, from these numbers, although you never can tell.

More people have moved out of Fairfax County than all of rural Virginia put together

It’s not even close. Fairfax County has lost only 2,795 people; that is just a 0.2% decline in a county that size, but, as I’ve pointed out before, this is historically huge because this is a county that hasn’t lost population since the 1820s. That bottom-line number masks what’s really happening: More people are moving out of Fairfax than are moving in, and the numbers are big. From 2020 to 2025, Fairfax had 38,495 more people move out than move in. That number has been almost, but not quite, balanced out by births exceeding both deaths and the moving van, but that’s still a lot of people moving out. That’s the equivalent of Gloucester County or Tazewell County just disappearing.

We’ve historically thought of rural Virginia as the place where people are moving out, but that’s no longer true: It’s the urban crescent, or, more accurately, parts of the urban crescent. Only four rural counties saw net out-migration: Buchanan, Dickenson, Henry and Wise. Between them, they had a net out-migration of 1,204.

Fairfax County’s outmigration is now almost 32 times more than all of rural Virginia.

Virginia Beach has lost more population than any other locality in the state

Again, this doesn’t show up on a percentage scale — just a 1.2% decline since 2020 — but in terms of actual numbers, Virginia Beach has lost more residents than anywhere else. It’s down 5,682 people. That’s also as much as the coal counties of Southwest Virginia combined: Buchanan, Dickenson, Lee, Russell, Scott, Tazewell and Wise, plus the city of Norton. Together they’ve lost 6,173.

As with Fairfax County, Virginia Beach’s problem is people moving out. Since 2020, the beach has had 12,522 more people leave than move in. Only Fairfax County has seen a bigger net exodus.

Almost all of Fairfax’s departures have been balanced by births, but only about half of Virginia Beach’s have.

Newport News posts Virginia’s second biggest population decline 

After Virginia Beach, the locality with the second-biggest population decline, on a numerical basis, is Newport News. That city’s population has dropped by 3,412 since the last census (although on a percentage basis, that’s just a 1.8% decline). We see a profile similar to Virginia Beach: Newport News has the third-highest population outflows in the state — 6,665 more people have moved out than moved in since 2020, a figure topped only by Fairfax County and Virginia Beach. As with Virginia Beach, births over deaths are high enough that they mitigate some, but not all, of that net out-migration. That brings us to this big picture:

Five of the seven cities in Hampton Roads have out-migration

Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Virginia Beach all have more people moving out than moving in. Only Chesapeake and Suffolk have net in-migration. However, the net in-migration in Chesapeake and Suffolk together still adds up to less than Virginia Beach’s out-migration, so the overall migration in and out of Hampton Roads is on the outflow side. Births over deaths make up for that, though, just barely. That’s why the overall population growth in Hampton Roads is just 1.0% since 2020. 

Now, for some good news:

Southwest Virginia’s coal counties may finally be seeing the end of out-migration

The coal counties are on the verge of a historic turnaround. They’re all still losing population, as they have been for decades now, but that can’t really be helped. All have aging populations, and deaths outnumber births by large margins. What is changing is that more people are now moving into most of these counties than are moving out — and this trend is accelerating. The numbers aren’t big enough to overcome those death figures, but this net in-migration seems a vote of confidence in the marketplace.

Lee County, Norton and Scott County have had net in-migration for several years now. These latest population estimates show that Russell County and Tazewell County have flipped from net out-migration to net in-migration in the past year. That leaves just Buchanan County, Dickenson County and Wise County with more people moving out than moving in, but in each locality, the gap is narrowing.

Last year’s estimates had Wise County at -228 from 2020 to 2024; now it’s at -92 for 2020 to 2025.

Dickenson County has gone from -177 last year to -97 in the new estimates.

Buchanan County has gone from -445 last year to -287 now.

If those trendlines continue, it seems likely that Dickenson and Wise may flip into the in-migration category soon; Buchanan may take a while longer.

It’s impossible from these stats to know whether this means more people are moving in or just that fewer people are moving out. Either way, the trends here are encouraging ones for the region.

Lynchburg is the baby capital of the western part of Virginia 

About two-thirds of Virginia’s population growth comes from people moving into the state, not people being born. Not surprisingly, where Virginia’s population is older (such as rural Virginia), deaths outnumber births. Where it’s younger (the urban crescent), births outnumber deaths. 

The one geographic exception is Lynchburg, where births exceed deaths by 402. That’s also not surprising; Lynchburg has the fifth-youngest median age of any locality in Virginia. Still, it makes Lynchburg quite different from other communities on the western side of the state. 

Danville gets the attention for being the ‘comeback city,’ but pay attention to the rest of Southside, too

Danville, which had been losing population since 1990, is now gaining population again — thanks to an especially strong rate of in-migration that is bigger than that of all but three other cities in Virginia. See Thursday’s column for the details on that. However, we really need to look at what’s happening across most of the southern tier of Virginia between Hampton Roads and the Blue Ridge. 

In the 2020 census, every locality along the state’s southern border, from Southampton County to Patrick County, lost population. They weren’t the largest population losses in the state (those were in Southwest), but some were close. 

In these estimates, which cover 2020 to 2025, Danville, Martinsville and Mecklenburg County are now posting population increases. All still see deaths outnumber births, but net in-migration is strong enough to make up for that. Martinsville’s population growth, while far more modest than Danville’s in numerical terms, is actually higher on a percentage basis — and more historic. Martinsville has been losing population since the 1970s. Now it’s not. (Danville has added 614 people, a 1.4% increase. Martinsville has added 226 people, a 1.7% increase.) 

Mecklenburg County, which lost 7.4% of its population in the decade prior to the 2020 headcount, is now on the plus side by 0.2%. Other border communities are still losing population, just not nearly as much. Brunswick County lost 9.09% of its population in the 2020 census; now it’s down by only 0.2%.

The details are consistent in these counties: More people are moving in, and that’s making up for population losses by death. If these trends continue, it appears likely that more of these Southside localities will start gaining population.

Henry County needs more young parents moving in

The one exception to these trends along the North Carolina border is Henry County. Its rate of population decline from 2020-2025 now exceeds that of 2010-2020. In the last census, Henry lost 5.9% of its population; now it’s at -6.0%. Three-fourths of Henry’s population decline is driven by deaths. The county has had 2,318 more deaths than births; that’s the highest such figure in the state. It’s unclear why Henry’s figure is so high, although it’s probably more related to a declining birth rate than an unusual number of people dying. What’s unusual about Henry is that it’s one of just four rural localities in the state (the others are in coal country) that have more people moving out than moving in. Its out-migration numbers are higher than any of the other three. That’s the real mystery: Why isn’t Henry attracting more newcomers? If it did, the county would likely have more births, which would mitigate those death figures. Part of the solution could be next door in Pittsylvania: As more tenants are attracted to the Southern Virginia Megasite, those companies will need more workers, and some will likely locate nearby in Henry. The other part is closer to home: the Commonwealth Crossing industrial park in Henry County. 

These population trends have policy implications

They say demographics are destiny. They also represent both challenges and opportunities for our government leaders — local, state and federal. Here’s how some of these trends might play out:

If you’re a Henry County official, you need to figure out how to attract more residents, but especially young parents or parents-to-be. If you’re a Danville official, you need to stay the course of what you’ve been doing because it’s clearly working. 

If you’re, say, the governor, you need to be concerned that Fairfax County (the biggest locality in our biggest metro) and Hampton Roads (our second-biggest metro) are seeing more people move out than move in. These are our two biggest economic engines, but they seem to be sputtering demographically. You can be pleased that statewide, Virginia is seeing in-migration pick up — especially in almost all rural areas. However, Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads are trouble spots that would seem to demand special attention. We should give our new governor time to get through her first legislative session, but at some point afterwards, these are things I’d like to ask her about.

Want more politics and analysis? Sign up for West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter that goes out on Fridays. Sign up here:

The post New population estimates: 32 times more people have moved out of Fairfax County than out of all rural Virginia appeared first on Cardinal News.

Want more on Virginia’s population trends? We’ve collected all our demographic coverage in one place.

For the past two days, I’ve been looking at the latest population estimates for Virginia, which come from the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia. 

On Wednesday, I looked at how Fairfax County’s population losses are accelerating while population growth downstate is growing.

On Thursday, I looked at how both these population trends are driven by people moving, rather than births and deaths. Virtually all of rural Virginia now sees more people moving in than moving out, a reversal of some generations-long trends. Many of those places are still losing population because, with an aging population, deaths outnumber both births and the new residents, but those population losses are slowing.

Today, I’ll delve deeper into the numbers and make some comparisons to put some of them in context. First, though, allow me a moment of geekdom. The word “delve” always reminds me of the line from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” where Gandalf the wizard was describing why the dwarves’ attempt at mining in Moria ended in catastrophe: “They delved too greedily and too deep, and disturbed that from which they fled.” Ideally, I will awaken no Balrog, an evil entity of fire and shadow, from these numbers, although you never can tell.

More people have moved out of Fairfax County than all of rural Virginia put together

It’s not even close. Fairfax County has lost only 2,795 people; that is just a 0.2% decline in a county that size, but, as I’ve pointed out before, this is historically huge because this is a county that hasn’t lost population since the 1820s. That bottom-line number masks what’s really happening: More people are moving out of Fairfax than are moving in, and the numbers are big. From 2020 to 2025, Fairfax had 38,495 more people move out than move in. That number has been almost, but not quite, balanced out by births exceeding both deaths and the moving van, but that’s still a lot of people moving out. That’s the equivalent of Gloucester County or Tazewell County just disappearing.

We’ve historically thought of rural Virginia as the place where people are moving out, but that’s no longer true: It’s the urban crescent, or, more accurately, parts of the urban crescent. Only four rural counties saw net out-migration: Buchanan, Dickenson, Henry and Wise. Between them, they had a net out-migration of 1,204.

Fairfax County’s outmigration is now almost 32 times more than all of rural Virginia.

Virginia Beach has lost more population than any other locality in the state

Again, this doesn’t show up on a percentage scale — just a 1.2% decline since 2020 — but in terms of actual numbers, Virginia Beach has lost more residents than anywhere else. It’s down 5,682 people. That’s also as much as the coal counties of Southwest Virginia combined: Buchanan, Dickenson, Lee, Russell, Scott, Tazewell and Wise, plus the city of Norton. Together they’ve lost 6,173.

As with Fairfax County, Virginia Beach’s problem is people moving out. Since 2020, the beach has had 12,522 more people leave than move in. Only Fairfax County has seen a bigger net exodus.

Almost all of Fairfax’s departures have been balanced by births, but only about half of Virginia Beach’s have.

Newport News posts Virginia’s second biggest population decline 

After Virginia Beach, the locality with the second-biggest population decline, on a numerical basis, is Newport News. That city’s population has dropped by 3,412 since the last census (although on a percentage basis, that’s just a 1.8% decline). We see a profile similar to Virginia Beach: Newport News has the third-highest population outflows in the state — 6,665 more people have moved out than moved in since 2020, a figure topped only by Fairfax County and Virginia Beach. As with Virginia Beach, births over deaths are high enough that they mitigate some, but not all, of that net out-migration. That brings us to this big picture:

Five of the seven cities in Hampton Roads have out-migration

Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Virginia Beach all have more people moving out than moving in. Only Chesapeake and Suffolk have net in-migration. However, the net in-migration in Chesapeake and Suffolk together still adds up to less than Virginia Beach’s out-migration, so the overall migration in and out of Hampton Roads is on the outflow side. Births over deaths make up for that, though, just barely. That’s why the overall population growth in Hampton Roads is just 1.0% since 2020. 

Now, for some good news:

Southwest Virginia’s coal counties may finally be seeing the end of out-migration

The coal counties are on the verge of a historic turnaround. They’re all still losing population, as they have been for decades now, but that can’t really be helped. All have aging populations, and deaths outnumber births by large margins. What is changing is that more people are now moving into most of these counties than are moving out — and this trend is accelerating. The numbers aren’t big enough to overcome those death figures, but this net in-migration seems a vote of confidence in the marketplace.

Lee County, Norton and Scott County have had net in-migration for several years now. These latest population estimates show that Russell County and Tazewell County have flipped from net out-migration to net in-migration in the past year. That leaves just Buchanan County, Dickenson County and Wise County with more people moving out than moving in, but in each locality, the gap is narrowing.

Last year’s estimates had Wise County at -228 from 2020 to 2024; now it’s at -92 for 2020 to 2025.

Dickenson County has gone from -177 last year to -97 in the new estimates.

Buchanan County has gone from -445 last year to -287 now.

If those trendlines continue, it seems likely that Dickenson and Wise may flip into the in-migration category soon; Buchanan may take a while longer.

It’s impossible from these stats to know whether this means more people are moving in or just that fewer people are moving out. Either way, the trends here are encouraging ones for the region.

Lynchburg is the baby capital of the western part of Virginia 

About two-thirds of Virginia’s population growth comes from people moving into the state, not people being born. Not surprisingly, where Virginia’s population is older (such as rural Virginia), deaths outnumber births. Where it’s younger (the urban crescent), births outnumber deaths. 

The one geographic exception is Lynchburg, where births exceed deaths by 402. That’s also not surprising; Lynchburg has the fifth-youngest median age of any locality in Virginia. Still, it makes Lynchburg quite different from other communities on the western side of the state. 

Danville gets the attention for being the ‘comeback city,’ but pay attention to the rest of Southside, too

Danville, which had been losing population since 1990, is now gaining population again — thanks to an especially strong rate of in-migration that is bigger than that of all but three other cities in Virginia. See Thursday’s column for the details on that. However, we really need to look at what’s happening across most of the southern tier of Virginia between Hampton Roads and the Blue Ridge. 

In the 2020 census, every locality along the state’s southern border, from Southampton County to Patrick County, lost population. They weren’t the largest population losses in the state (those were in Southwest), but some were close. 

In these estimates, which cover 2020 to 2025, Danville, Martinsville and Mecklenburg County are now posting population increases. All still see deaths outnumber births, but net in-migration is strong enough to make up for that. Martinsville’s population growth, while far more modest than Danville’s in numerical terms, is actually higher on a percentage basis — and more historic. Martinsville has been losing population since the 1970s. Now it’s not. (Danville has added 614 people, a 1.4% increase. Martinsville has added 226 people, a 1.7% increase.) 

Mecklenburg County, which lost 7.4% of its population in the decade prior to the 2020 headcount, is now on the plus side by 0.2%. Other border communities are still losing population, just not nearly as much. Brunswick County lost 9.09% of its population in the 2020 census; now it’s down by only 0.2%.

The details are consistent in these counties: More people are moving in, and that’s making up for population losses by death. If these trends continue, it appears likely that more of these Southside localities will start gaining population.

Henry County needs more young parents moving in

The one exception to these trends along the North Carolina border is Henry County. Its rate of population decline from 2020-2025 now exceeds that of 2010-2020. In the last census, Henry lost 5.9% of its population; now it’s at -6.0%. Three-fourths of Henry’s population decline is driven by deaths. The county has had 2,318 more deaths than births; that’s the highest such figure in the state. It’s unclear why Henry’s figure is so high, although it’s probably more related to a declining birth rate than an unusual number of people dying. What’s unusual about Henry is that it’s one of just four rural localities in the state (the others are in coal country) that have more people moving out than moving in. Its out-migration numbers are higher than any of the other three. That’s the real mystery: Why isn’t Henry attracting more newcomers? If it did, the county would likely have more births, which would mitigate those death figures. Part of the solution could be next door in Pittsylvania: As more tenants are attracted to the Southern Virginia Megasite, those companies will need more workers, and some will likely locate nearby in Henry. The other part is closer to home: the Commonwealth Crossing industrial park in Henry County. 

These population trends have policy implications

They say demographics are destiny. They also represent both challenges and opportunities for our government leaders — local, state and federal. Here’s how some of these trends might play out:

If you’re a Henry County official, you need to figure out how to attract more residents, but especially young parents or parents-to-be. If you’re a Danville official, you need to stay the course of what you’ve been doing because it’s clearly working. 

If you’re, say, the governor, you need to be concerned that Fairfax County (the biggest locality in our biggest metro) and Hampton Roads (our second-biggest metro) are seeing more people move out than move in. These are our two biggest economic engines, but they seem to be sputtering demographically. You can be pleased that statewide, Virginia is seeing in-migration pick up — especially in almost all rural areas. However, Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads are trouble spots that would seem to demand special attention. We should give our new governor time to get through her first legislative session, but at some point afterwards, these are things I’d like to ask her about.

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President Donald Trump spent much of this week’s State of the Union address assuring Americans that “the roaring economy is roaring like never before” and that “this is the golden age of America.”

Virginians aren’t buying it.

The latest Roanoke College poll on Virginians’ feelings about the economy finds only marginal improvement, at best, on how they see the economy. Overall, most Virginians don’t see the economy improving under Trump’s second term.

While this poll — separate from the survey that Roanoke College released earlier this week about redistricting — deals only with economic matters, the results show how challenging the political terrain this fall could be for Republicans in the congressional midterms.

Here’s a summary of the results:

Three-fourths of Virginians don’t see the financial situation improving

The poll asked a variation of the question that boosted Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential campaign and sank President Jimmy Carter: Are you better off or worse off financially than you were a year ago? In this sampling:

Better off: 24.1%
Same: 38.6%
Worse off: 37.3%

The good news for Trump: That’s the highest “better off” reading in the Roanoke College poll during his second term.

The not-so-good news: That change is within the margin of error of 3.3 percentage points from the previous Roanoke College polls taken during his second term, so it could just be a statistical blip.

In the previous survey in December:

Better off: 22.9%
Same: 37.8%
Worse off: 39.3%

Even if that slight increase is an accurate reading, the 24.1% who see themselves better off is still lower than it was during all but one survey taken when Joe Biden was president.

When Biden took office, Virginians were more optimistic. Eight months into Biden’s term, their mood was improving: 31.8% saw themselves better off than the year before. Then inflation revved up, and the public’s mood soured. By May 2022, only 20.2% saw themselves better off, the lowest reading of Biden’s presidency. After that, things recovered somewhat (emphasis on the somewhat), and for the remainder of Biden’s term, the Roanoke College poll found between 24.3% and 28.4% felt themselves better off. The last Roanoke College poll of Biden’s term, in November 2024, found that 28.3% found themselves better off.

Under Trump, that sank to the 21% range and just now has edged up to 24.1%. Unless those numbers improve, Republicans may find it difficult to run on a “golden age” platform this fall.

Nearly half think the country’s economy is worse off than a year ago

In a related question, the poll asks how respondents see the national economy compared to a year ago:

Better off: 21.0%
Same: 30.0%
Worse off: 48.9%

The good news for Trump: That “worse off” reading is improving. In December, 51.4% said it was worse off. In August, 54.4% said it was worse off, so the trendlines are favorable for Republicans.

Still, that’s a lot of people who see the economy going in the wrong direction. That reading is also higher than when Biden left office. In the final Roanoke College poll of 2024, the survey found that 38.6% saw the economy likely to be worse off in a year’s time.

Republicans will need to make a “stay the course” argument that the benefits of Trump’s policies haven’t fully kicked in yet. The question is how much voters will believe that.

Optimism is not returning

Incumbents generally need voters to feel optimistic — to believe that even if things aren’t great now, they will be. Virginians aren’t feeling optimistic, though, and nothing Trump has done during his second term seems to be moving that needle.

The Roanoke College poll asked respondents to look to the future: “Do you think that a year from now you and your family … will be better off financially, worse off, or just about the same as now?”

Better off: 31.0%
Same: 40.5%
Worse off: 28.5%

Those numbers haven’t really changed throughout Trump’s second term. If anything, they’re down a bit. In February 2025, just after Trump had taken office, 34.4% said they saw themselves better off a year from now. That year has now passed, and they don’t seem to feel that way. The only thing that’s changed is that fewer people see themselves as worse off and more see themselves as about the same. That constitutes a reduction in pessimism but not an increase in optimism.

While the immediate news here may be bad, in political terms, for Republicans, we can also flip that around: Even if Democrats were to regain control of Congress this fall, they couldn’t enact their policies. The most they could do would be to stop some (but not all) of Trump’s policies, so Democrats can’t realistically promise to make things better with their own agenda. For voters who aren’t feeling optimistic under Trump, that may be yet another reason not to feel optimistic about much of anything.

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President Donald Trump spent much of this week’s State of the Union address assuring Americans that “the roaring economy is roaring like never before” and that “this is the golden age of America.”

Virginians aren’t buying it.

The latest Roanoke College poll on Virginians’ feelings about the economy finds only marginal improvement, at best, on how they see the economy. Overall, most Virginians don’t see the economy improving under Trump’s second term.

While this poll — separate from the survey that Roanoke College released earlier this week about redistricting — deals only with economic matters, the results show how challenging the political terrain this fall could be for Republicans in the congressional midterms.

Here’s a summary of the results:

Three-fourths of Virginians don’t see the financial situation improving

The poll asked a variation of the question that boosted Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential campaign and sank President Jimmy Carter: Are you better off or worse off financially than you were a year ago? In this sampling:

Better off: 24.1%
Same: 38.6%
Worse off: 37.3%

The good news for Trump: That’s the highest “better off” reading in the Roanoke College poll during his second term.

The not-so-good news: That change is within the margin of error of 3.3 percentage points from the previous Roanoke College polls taken during his second term, so it could just be a statistical blip.

In the previous survey in December:

Better off: 22.9%
Same: 37.8%
Worse off: 39.3%

Even if that slight increase is an accurate reading, the 24.1% who see themselves better off is still lower than it was during all but one survey taken when Joe Biden was president.

When Biden took office, Virginians were more optimistic. Eight months into Biden’s term, their mood was improving: 31.8% saw themselves better off than the year before. Then inflation revved up, and the public’s mood soured. By May 2022, only 20.2% saw themselves better off, the lowest reading of Biden’s presidency. After that, things recovered somewhat (emphasis on the somewhat), and for the remainder of Biden’s term, the Roanoke College poll found between 24.3% and 28.4% felt themselves better off. The last Roanoke College poll of Biden’s term, in November 2024, found that 28.3% found themselves better off.

Under Trump, that sank to the 21% range and just now has edged up to 24.1%. Unless those numbers improve, Republicans may find it difficult to run on a “golden age” platform this fall.

Nearly half think the country’s economy is worse off than a year ago

In a related question, the poll asks how respondents see the national economy compared to a year ago:

Better off: 21.0%
Same: 30.0%
Worse off: 48.9%

The good news for Trump: That “worse off” reading is improving. In December, 51.4% said it was worse off. In August, 54.4% said it was worse off, so the trendlines are favorable for Republicans.

Still, that’s a lot of people who see the economy going in the wrong direction. That reading is also higher than when Biden left office. In the final Roanoke College poll of 2024, the survey found that 38.6% saw the economy likely to be worse off in a year’s time.

Republicans will need to make a “stay the course” argument that the benefits of Trump’s policies haven’t fully kicked in yet. The question is how much voters will believe that.

Optimism is not returning

Incumbents generally need voters to feel optimistic — to believe that even if things aren’t great now, they will be. Virginians aren’t feeling optimistic, though, and nothing Trump has done during his second term seems to be moving that needle.

The Roanoke College poll asked respondents to look to the future: “Do you think that a year from now you and your family … will be better off financially, worse off, or just about the same as now?”

Better off: 31.0%
Same: 40.5%
Worse off: 28.5%

Those numbers haven’t really changed throughout Trump’s second term. If anything, they’re down a bit. In February 2025, just after Trump had taken office, 34.4% said they saw themselves better off a year from now. That year has now passed, and they don’t seem to feel that way. The only thing that’s changed is that fewer people see themselves as worse off and more see themselves as about the same. That constitutes a reduction in pessimism but not an increase in optimism.

While the immediate news here may be bad, in political terms, for Republicans, we can also flip that around: Even if Democrats were to regain control of Congress this fall, they couldn’t enact their policies. The most they could do would be to stop some (but not all) of Trump’s policies, so Democrats can’t realistically promise to make things better with their own agenda. For voters who aren’t feeling optimistic under Trump, that may be yet another reason not to feel optimistic about much of anything.

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The post Roanoke College poll: Three-fourths of Virginians don’t see their financial situation improving appeared first on Cardinal News.

President Donald Trump spent much of this week’s State of the Union address assuring Americans that “the roaring economy is roaring like never before” and that “this is the golden age of America.”

Virginians aren’t buying it.

The latest Roanoke College poll on Virginians’ feelings about the economy finds only marginal improvement, at best, on how they see the economy. Overall, most Virginians don’t see the economy improving under Trump’s second term.

While this poll — separate from the survey that Roanoke College released earlier this week about redistricting — deals only with economic matters, the results show how challenging the political terrain this fall could be for Republicans in the congressional midterms.

Here’s a summary of the results:

Three-fourths of Virginians don’t see the financial situation improving

The poll asked a variation of the question that boosted Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential campaign and sank President Jimmy Carter: Are you better off or worse off financially than you were a year ago? In this sampling:

Better off: 24.1%
Same: 38.6%
Worse off: 37.3%

The good news for Trump: That’s the highest “better off” reading in the Roanoke College poll during his second term.

The not-so-good news: That change is within the margin of error of 3.3 percentage points from the previous Roanoke College polls taken during his second term, so it could just be a statistical blip.

In the previous survey in December:

Better off: 22.9%
Same: 37.8%
Worse off: 39.3%

Even if that slight increase is an accurate reading, the 24.1% who see themselves better off is still lower than it was during all but one survey taken when Joe Biden was president.

When Biden took office, Virginians were more optimistic. Eight months into Biden’s term, their mood was improving: 31.8% saw themselves better off than the year before. Then inflation revved up, and the public’s mood soured. By May 2022, only 20.2% saw themselves better off, the lowest reading of Biden’s presidency. After that, things recovered somewhat (emphasis on the somewhat), and for the remainder of Biden’s term, the Roanoke College poll found between 24.3% and 28.4% felt themselves better off. The last Roanoke College poll of Biden’s term, in November 2024, found that 28.3% found themselves better off.

Under Trump, that sank to the 21% range and just now has edged up to 24.1%. Unless those numbers improve, Republicans may find it difficult to run on a “golden age” platform this fall.

Nearly half think the country’s economy is worse off than a year ago

In a related question, the poll asks how respondents see the national economy compared to a year ago:

Better off: 21.0%
Same: 30.0%
Worse off: 48.9%

The good news for Trump: That “worse off” reading is improving. In December, 51.4% said it was worse off. In August, 54.4% said it was worse off, so the trendlines are favorable for Republicans.

Still, that’s a lot of people who see the economy going in the wrong direction. That reading is also higher than when Biden left office. In the final Roanoke College poll of 2024, the survey found that 38.6% saw the economy likely to be worse off in a year’s time.

Republicans will need to make a “stay the course” argument that the benefits of Trump’s policies haven’t fully kicked in yet. The question is how much voters will believe that.

Optimism is not returning

Incumbents generally need voters to feel optimistic — to believe that even if things aren’t great now, they will be. Virginians aren’t feeling optimistic, though, and nothing Trump has done during his second term seems to be moving that needle.

The Roanoke College poll asked respondents to look to the future: “Do you think that a year from now you and your family … will be better off financially, worse off, or just about the same as now?”

Better off: 31.0%
Same: 40.5%
Worse off: 28.5%

Those numbers haven’t really changed throughout Trump’s second term. If anything, they’re down a bit. In February 2025, just after Trump had taken office, 34.4% said they saw themselves better off a year from now. That year has now passed, and they don’t seem to feel that way. The only thing that’s changed is that fewer people see themselves as worse off and more see themselves as about the same. That constitutes a reduction in pessimism but not an increase in optimism.

While the immediate news here may be bad, in political terms, for Republicans, we can also flip that around: Even if Democrats were to regain control of Congress this fall, they couldn’t enact their policies. The most they could do would be to stop some (but not all) of Trump’s policies, so Democrats can’t realistically promise to make things better with their own agenda. For voters who aren’t feeling optimistic under Trump, that may be yet another reason not to feel optimistic about much of anything.

Want more politics and analysis? Sign up for West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter that goes out on Fridays. Sign up here:

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Bristol’s decision to scrap the baseball stadium it planned to build could mean the end of the Bristol State Liners, Chris Allen, CEO of Boyd Sports, said Thursday.

The Knoxville-based company owns and operates the team, which was part of the Appalachian League. Currently, the team is suspended with no games for the 2026 season because it has no stadium to play in. The State Liners, a minor league collegiate summer team, are no longer on the league’s website.

“Right now, talking to the MLB [Major League Baseball] office, I don’t know when they’re going to bring a State Liners back, or if there’s ever going to be a State Liners again, to be honest with you,” Allen said. “I hope I’m wrong. … Sometimes, the timing is just not right and maybe it’ll be revisited down the road.”

On Wednesday, Bristol officials announced that they will not move forward with the project because the city, which is in debt by more than $100 million, can’t afford to.

“After a comprehensive review of the project requirements, the potential funding sources and the overall debt requirements related to the construction and operation of a new baseball stadium, the city has decided not to move forward with the project at this time,” the release states.

The two-sentence release did not mention the State Liners.

Mayor Jake Holmes said building the stadium would not have been a “smart move.”

“It’s just the cost of the project coupled with the amount of debt we’d have to take on when we’ve got so much debt to begin with. … It wasn’t a feasible thing to do. As we were getting into budget season this year, and as we really started to look at finances, it solidified where we needed to go,’’ Holmes said.

At the end of the current fiscal year, the city will owe just over $90 million in general obligation debt and another $23.7 million for the new school that opened in August 2024, said Tamrya Spradlin, the interim city manager.

Some of the debt can be attributed to ongoing odor issues at the city’s closed quarry landfill. So far, the city has spent about $32 million on landfill-related projects, while future landfill costs are expected to total an additional $79 million.

The cost of building the stadium was expected to be $10 million to $12 million, former City Manager Randy Eads said last fall. When Eads announced in January that he was resigning to work for the state’s new attorney general, he listed the baseball stadium as one of his biggest accomplishments.

Last August, Eads announced the construction of a multiuse stadium that would have brought the State Liners back to the city. The team had announced earlier that it was moving to Bristol, Tennessee, where a new baseball facility would be built, but two plans fell through.

Bristol, Virginia, leaders had identified a site, on Bob Morrison Boulevard behind the Food City store, for the stadium, but they said in late January they had decided against purchasing the property.

Originally, Boyd Sports’ deal with Bristol, Virginia, was to provide $2 million for the project and pay for the turf field, the video board and a group sales amenity, Allen said.

When he learned that Eads was leaving the city, Allen said he worried that the deal might fall apart because Eads had spearheaded the project.

Allen said he spoke twice to the “new leadership” about two weeks ago, and they wanted to restructure the agreement.

“They came back and wanted to do more of a 50-50 split and that’s just something we weren’t willing to do,” he said.

He added that Boyd Sports is busy getting ready for the 2026 season for its other teams and doesn’t have time to think about the State Liners at this time. Boyd owns or operates the Knoxville Smokies, the Double-A affiliate of the Chicago Cubs, and several summer collegiate baseball teams: the Johnson City Doughboys, Greeneville Flyboys, Kingsport Axmen and Elizabethton River Riders.

The stadium would also have been home to the Virginia High School varsity baseball team and would have served as a venue for concerts, festivals and other community events.

For more than 50 years, the State Liners and previous versions of the team played at DeVault Stadium, Boyce Cox Field, on the Virginia side of Bristol, but the facility has been deteriorating for years.

In 2023, the team announced the move to Tennessee. For the last two seasons, the State Liners played in Greeneville and Johnson City, Tennessee.

DeVault Stadium will continue to be home to the high school baseball team. In the news release announcing the end of the project, city officials said they will continue to review the facility needs of DeVault Stadium so they can provide a “superior baseball facility” for the team.

The post Bristol’s decision to scrap plan for new baseball stadium leaves minor league team’s future uncertain appeared first on Cardinal News.

A Lynchburg Circuit Court judge said he will issue a ruling Monday in a case that seeks his opinion on how the city should navigate the evolving legal landscape of the statewide referendum on redistricting. 

Circuit Judge Patrick Yeatts heard arguments Thursday in the city of Lynchburg’s petition for declaratory judgment and declined to grant a motion to dismiss the case. He said he will reconvene the hearing at 11 a.m. Monday and issue a ruling then, in an effort to avoid a “rash and imprudent” ruling in a case with such high stakes and so many moving pieces. 

The window will give Yeatts more time to review the arguments and attorneys more time to submit additional materials, given the expedited timeline of the initial emergency hearing. The suit was filed Wednesday after the city’s Republican-majority council voted to initiate the process Tuesday. 

Early voting on the referendum is scheduled to start March 6. 

Meanwhile, two appeals are pending in the Virginia Supreme Court related to the redistricting referendum, which would enable Democrats in the General Assembly to redraw congressional lines before November’s midterms with an eye toward knocking out four of the state’s five Republican U.S. House members. The first appeal stems from a January ruling by the Tazewell County Circuit Court that sought to halt the redistricting effort, finding that it ran afoul of the state constitution on procedural grounds. The second stems from another ruling in Tazewell County that specifically told state officials to stop administering or preparing for the referendum.

The petition in Lynchburg “seeks judicial clarification of the City’s and its General Registrar’s legal duties and obligations in administering the April 21, 2026 constitutional referendum” in light of the shifting legal grounds, according to court documents. It also asks the judge for “temporary injunctive relief” in the city — meaning a pause on election preparation and execution. 

Tim Anderson, a former Republican state delegate from Virginia Beach who is representing Lynchburg pro bono in the case, said that Yeatts’ extended consideration is a “signal” that he is taking Lynchburg’s request for an injunction seriously. 

“I think Judge Yeatts is going to grant that, 100%. Because he would have dismissed it otherwise, or he would have denied it,” Anderson said after the hearing.

During the hearing, Anderson asked Yeatts specifically for an injunction until April 16.

That date is at the center of Anderson’s main argument: that the state constitution requires a 90-day buffer between when the General Assembly passes a ballot question and when that question can be presented to voters. Such a window would set the first day of early voting on April 16, rather than the currently scheduled March 6. 

The city of Lynchburg is the sole plaintiff against three defendants: Commissioner of Elections Steven Koski, the state Board of Elections and the state Department of Elections. Dan Pense, the city’s general registrar, is included in the suit as a necessary party.

[Read more: Registrars forge ahead with early voting preparations as redistricting court cases loom.]

Todd Shockley, the senior assistant attorney general who is representing the three defendants, and Aria Branch, an attorney who made a motion to intervene in the case on behalf of the group Virginians for Fair Elections, said during the hearing that the constitutional blackout window refers to Election Day, not to the first day of early voting. April 21, Election Day for the referendum, is more than 90 days after the General Assembly approved it. Voters aren’t forced to go to the polls on March 6 if they don’t feel prepared to make a decision then, they added. 

Shockley and Branch asked the judge to deny all of the city’s requests for relief, which include the temporary injunction and four requests for declarations as to how the city and its registrar should act in light of the Tazewell injunction and the state constitution. 

They argued throughout the hearing that the Lynchburg registrar is required by state law to run the election; that Lynchburg is not bound by the Tazewell injunction, which targets state officials; that this petition at this time is not an appropriate way to challenge a constitutional amendment; and that disenfranchising Lynchburg’s 58,000 voters is a real risk of pumping the breaks on election preparation and early voting. 

Anderson said after the hearing that the rushed and “completely illegal constitutional process of passing this redistricting amendment” has “caused chaos” throughout Virginia, and localities are in the dark without court opinions to guide them. 

“The city of Lynchburg doesn’t know what to do, nobody knows what to do. Everybody’s winging it. And we need the courts to step up and tell us what to do. And that’s why we’re here,” he said.

Council member Jacqueline Timmer, who introduced the resolution to start the city’s petition process, agreed.  

“I think as a locality — and all localities in Virginia — we’ve found ourselves in a tough position because we’re receiving conflicting constitutional information and statutory information, and guidance and lack of guidance. And so with that it really is within the judicial purview in order for those decisions to be made,” she said after the hearing.  

Both Pense and Patricia Jones, the city’s deputy registrar, testified Thursday that they rely on the Department of Elections for many of their operations. That department has stopped preparing for the election, per the Tazewell order. That means it hasn’t approved a new polling place in Lynchburg’s fourth ward, provided up-to-date voter data, or opened the survey that allows the city to certify its accuracy tests of its voting machines — among other tasks needed to conduct an election as normal — Pense and Jones said. With election deadlines looming and state guidance missing, they said, they need clarity from the court as soon as possible.

Jones will take over as registrar on Monday following Pense’s retirement. Pense informed the city’s electoral board of his desire to step down in December. 

Council member Marty Misjuns also testified Thursday, speaking to the idea that his oath of office calls him to uphold the state constitution, and that using city funds to execute an election that doesn’t follow constitutional guardrails goes against that oath.   

Anderson said he’ll seek answers for Lynchburg in every avenue possible. 

“We’re going to the Supreme Court no matter what,” he said after the hearing. “We lose, we win, we’re going to the Supreme Court.”

The post Judge set to rule Monday in Lynchburg redistricting case appeared first on Cardinal News.

A Lynchburg Circuit Court judge said he will issue a ruling Monday in a case that seeks his opinion on how the city should navigate the evolving legal landscape of the statewide referendum on redistricting. 

Circuit Judge Patrick Yeatts heard arguments Thursday in the city of Lynchburg’s petition for declaratory judgment and declined to grant a motion to dismiss the case. He said he will reconvene the hearing at 11 a.m. Monday and issue a ruling then, in an effort to avoid a “rash and imprudent” ruling in a case with such high stakes and so many moving pieces. 

The window will give Yeatts more time to review the arguments and attorneys more time to submit additional materials, given the expedited timeline of the initial emergency hearing. The suit was filed Wednesday after the city’s Republican-majority council voted to initiate the process Tuesday. 

Early voting on the referendum is scheduled to start March 6. 

Meanwhile, two appeals are pending in the Virginia Supreme Court related to the redistricting referendum, which would enable Democrats in the General Assembly to redraw congressional lines before November’s midterms with an eye toward knocking out four of the state’s five Republican U.S. House members. The first appeal stems from a January ruling by the Tazewell County Circuit Court that sought to halt the redistricting effort, finding that it ran afoul of the state constitution on procedural grounds. The second stems from another ruling in Tazewell County that specifically told state officials to stop administering or preparing for the referendum.

The petition in Lynchburg “seeks judicial clarification of the City’s and its General Registrar’s legal duties and obligations in administering the April 21, 2026 constitutional referendum” in light of the shifting legal grounds, according to court documents. It also asks the judge for “temporary injunctive relief” in the city — meaning a pause on election preparation and execution. 

Tim Anderson, a former Republican state delegate from Virginia Beach who is representing Lynchburg pro bono in the case, said that Yeatts’ extended consideration is a “signal” that he is taking Lynchburg’s request for an injunction seriously. 

“I think Judge Yeatts is going to grant that, 100%. Because he would have dismissed it otherwise, or he would have denied it,” Anderson said after the hearing.

During the hearing, Anderson asked Yeatts specifically for an injunction until April 16.

That date is at the center of Anderson’s main argument: that the state constitution requires a 90-day buffer between when the General Assembly passes a ballot question and when that question can be presented to voters. Such a window would set the first day of early voting on April 16, rather than the currently scheduled March 6. 

The city of Lynchburg is the sole plaintiff against three defendants: Commissioner of Elections Steven Koski, the state Board of Elections and the state Department of Elections. Dan Pense, the city’s general registrar, is included in the suit as a necessary party.

Todd Shockley, the senior assistant attorney general who is representing the three defendants, and Aria Branch, an attorney who made a motion to intervene in the case on behalf of the group Virginians for Fair Elections, said during the hearing that the constitutional blackout window refers to Election Day, not to the first day of early voting. April 21, Election Day for the referendum, is more than 90 days after the General Assembly approved it. Voters aren’t forced to go to the polls on March 6 if they don’t feel prepared to make a decision then, they added. 

Shockley and Branch asked the judge to deny all of the city’s requests for relief, which include the temporary injunction and four requests for declarations as to how the city and its registrar should act in light of the Tazewell injunction and the state constitution. 

They argued throughout the hearing that the Lynchburg registrar is required by state law to run the election; that Lynchburg is not bound by the Tazewell injunction, which targets state officials; that this petition at this time is not an appropriate way to challenge a constitutional amendment; and that disenfranchising Lynchburg’s 58,000 voters is a real risk of pumping the breaks on election preparation and early voting. 

Anderson said after the hearing that the rushed and “completely illegal constitutional process of passing this redistricting amendment” has “caused chaos” throughout Virginia, and localities are in the dark without court opinions to guide them. 

“The city of Lynchburg doesn’t know what to do, nobody knows what to do. Everybody’s winging it. And we need the courts to step up and tell us what to do. And that’s why we’re here,” he said.

Council member Jacqueline Timmer, who introduced the resolution to start the city’s petition process, agreed.  

“I think as a locality — and all localities in Virginia — we’ve found ourselves in a tough position because we’re receiving conflicting constitutional information and statutory information, and guidance and lack of guidance. And so with that it really is within the judicial purview in order for those decisions to be made,” she said after the hearing.  

Both Pense and Patricia Jones, the city’s deputy registrar, testified Thursday that they rely on the Department of Elections for many of their operations. That department has stopped preparing for the election, per the Tazewell order. That means it hasn’t approved a new polling place in Lynchburg’s fourth ward, provided up-to-date voter data, or opened the survey that allows the city to certify its accuracy tests of its voting machines — among other tasks needed to conduct an election as normal — Pense and Jones said. With election deadlines looming and state guidance missing, they said, they need clarity from the court as soon as possible.

Jones will take over as registrar on Monday following Pense’s retirement. Pense informed the city’s electoral board of his desire to step down in December. 

Council member Marty Misjuns also testified Thursday, speaking to the idea that his oath of office calls him to uphold the state constitution, and that using city funds to execute an election that doesn’t follow constitutional guardrails goes against that oath.   

Anderson said he’ll seek answers for Lynchburg in every avenue possible. 

“We’re going to the Supreme Court no matter what,” he said after the hearing. “We lose, we win, we’re going to the Supreme Court.”

The post Judge set to rule Monday in Lynchburg redistricting case appeared first on Cardinal News.

Opponents of HB 161 and SB 118 have claimed these proposals to legalize and regulate iGaming in Virginia would unleash an addiction crisis and bring about economic destruction. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

The reality is that these legislative bills would put Virginia at the vanguard of responsible gaming by mandating the most robust consumer protections in the nation. Furthermore, the bills would capture an estimated $300 million per year in tax revenue from an industry that is currently illegal, unregulated and growing fast, and it would generate new jobs while protecting existing jobs.

You don’t have to take my word for it. The data from other states’ experience proves it. And the text of the legislation spells out clear provisions that ensure consumers are protected and that the commonwealth of Virginia benefits.

Some land-based casino interests selfishly claim that online gaming will cannibalize their brick-and-mortar revenue. Others, including faith-based groups, argue that further legalization increases public health risks.

Let’s address each concern:  

First, the cannibalization claim simply is not borne out by evidence. Look at any state where online casino gaming is already legal — states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In each of these states, brick-and-mortar casinos are not shrinking. They are growing.

Pennsylvania’s brick-and-mortar properties continue to generate billions in annual revenue while iGaming grows alongside them. Michigan has seen similar trends, with retail and online gaming operating in parallel and expanding overall market growth. 

In fact, the independent gaming regulators who oversaw iGaming implementation in  Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania all have testified to this positive effect. 

In practice, iGaming and brick-and-mortar casinos serve complimentary purposes. iGaming allows casinos to cross-promote their retail facilities with online products, driving engagement and economic growth in both channels. 

Many of the loudest brick-and-mortar casino critics of iGaming won’t tell you that they too offer iGaming products in states where it is legal, or that they have added major casino facilities and square footage since iGaming markets launched. They also won’t acknowledge that HB 161 and SB 118 are projected to create 1,200 jobs or how this legislation will generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue annually for important Virginia priorities. 

Most troubling, the self-interested casino opponents of iGaming ignore the reality that Virginia residents are already playing casino games and slots online — with shady, unregulated offshore casinos that can refuse to pay out jackpots, leave customers completely unprotected from scams and do little to prevent minors from logging on. 

Which brings us to the second false argument claiming increased public health risks.

We respect that some Americans have deeply held beliefs about gambling. But public policy cannot be built on the assumption that prohibiting legal options eliminates demand and minimizes health risks.

Online casino gaming is already widely available. It is just not regulated in many states, Virginia included.

Today, offshore illegal operators and so-called “sweepstakes casinos” aggressively market to American consumers. It is such a grave threat that nearly one-fourth of all states have taken some legal enforcement actions against these operators. 

Sadly, they operate outside U.S. regulatory oversight, do not pay state taxes and offer none of the consumer protections required in regulated markets. The American Gaming Association has estimated that Americans wager $466 billion annually through illegal and unregulated gaming channels.

Prohibition does not stop gambling. It does not prevent harm to citizens. It simply pushes consumers into the shadows and, worse, fails those needing help.

In states where it is authorized and legal, operators must adhere to

• Strict licensing requirements
• Age and identity verification standards that permit access to only individuals aged 21+
• Anti-money laundering protocols, and 
• Responsible gaming mandates. 

As a result, research consistently shows that problem gambling rates remain low and are stable in jurisdictions with legal online options.

Finally, public opinion reflects a mature understanding of gaming as mainstream entertainment. A 2024 national survey found that 71 percent of likely voters support legal casino gaming. That support spans party lines and demographic groups.

In the end, these proposals in the legislature are not about encouraging anyone to gamble. Legalization is about acknowledging that adults already have access to online casino games — and ensuring that access occurs within a transparent, regulated, tax-paying framework.

HB 118 and SB 161 create guardrails. They provide funding for responsible gaming programs. The proposals enable enforcement against illegal operators and provide consumer recourse if something goes wrong. And they generate meaningful revenue that can be directed to education, public safety or other priorities determined by lawmakers.

The choice before policymakers is not whether online casino gaming exists. It does. The real question is whether it will operate in the light of day — regulated, taxed and accountable — or continue to flourish in the shadows.

We can have personal or self-interested beliefs regarding the expansion of legal gambling. But public policy must be grounded in evidence and consumer protection. 

HB 161 and SB 118 recognize Virginia’s current gaming environment and that guardrails are needed to protect consumers, collect tax revenue from platform operators and facilitate job creation.

And that is the responsible path forward.

Joe Maloney is president of the Sports Betting Alliance, which advocates for legal, regulated online sports betting and online gaming in the U.S. More: sportsbettingalliance.org.  

The post Sports betting leader: Legalizing online casino gaming is about protecting consumers  appeared first on Cardinal News.

The Virginia General Assembly is considering legislation that would fundamentally change how gambling exists in our commonwealth. If passed, online casino gambling would place a casino at a fingertip’s reach of every Virginian, accessible at any hour, in any place, with no natural breaks or barriers.

Online casino gambling is currently illegal in 42 of 50 states in the United States, and for good reason. The societal harms associated with these products consistently outweigh any promised benefits. In states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey, where online casino gambling is legal, gambling addiction is surging. 

In New Jersey, which legalized online gambling in 2013, an estimated 6% of adults are actively struggling with gambling addiction — three times the national average. One study suggests it could be costing the state upwards of $350 million annually in social costs. Other states with online gambling continue to receive more and more calls coming into their problem gambling helplines and see ever-growing reliance on treatment systems, which only leads to needing more revenue to fund these services. For example, in Pennsylvania, which has authorized numerous forms of gambling, 34% of all calls to its helpline are related to online gambling.

Unlike traditional forms of gambling that require people to go somewhere specific and make a deliberate choice to participate, online casinos follow people home. They are always on, always within reach and are designed to keep users playing. 

The research is also clear that iGaming is among the most addictive gambling products available, by a wide margin. The National Institutes of Health has noted online gambling carries an addiction rate eight times higher among young people than the general population. Another researcher suggested that iGambling could be 10 times more addictive than other betting products. This massive expansion of addictive, always-on gambling is a surefire recipe to increase gambling-related harm, particularly among young people. As Dr. Lia Nower, director of Rutgers Center for Gambling Studies, recently said, “The ones with the highest rates of problem gambling are lying in bed at night on their iPad while their partner’s asleep.” 

As a Virginian, an advocate against the dangers of problem gambling and a mother, I can tell you this threat to our communities is very real. Problem gambling is not confined to an individual. It affects families, workplaces and communities. It’s also linked to increased rates of anxiety, depression, financial instability and family breakdown. People experiencing gambling addiction face significantly higher risks of suicide and often require long-term mental health and social support. These costs do not just disappear; they end up absorbed by our families, communities and public systems.

Calls to the Virginia Council on Problem Gambling Helpline have already increased by more than 1,200% over the last five years. Legalizing iGaming would only cause further damage. Research shows that bankruptcy rates in states with regulated online gambling increased by 27%. The consequences are more than just empty bank accounts. Supporters argue that regulation will rein in bad behavior, but experience in other states raises serious doubts. In Ohio, DraftKings alone reported 620 instances of underage betting totaling more than $2.7 million within a fully legal market. Those bets were placed before they were stopped. If minors are able to deposit and wager significant sums inside a regulated system, legalization is not eliminating risk. It is expanding access and responding only after harm has already occurred.

The supporters of online casino gambling point to potential revenue as justification, but revenue does not excuse or erase the potential harm. The expansion of online gambling is not easily reversed, even when consequences become apparent. Once a state becomes dependent on gambling dollars, it becomes far more difficult to acknowledge or address the damage those dollars create. Worse, the state lottery director recently testified that iGaming could result in the lottery losing as much as $500 million over the next 5 years, all of which would go to support K-12 public education.

Virginia’s new leadership, including Gov. Spanberger, has rightly emphasized the importance of mental health, family stability and affordability. Those priorities are incompatible with policies that dramatically increase access to the most addictive forms of gambling, particularly when that access is delivered directly into people’s homes and pockets.

The question facing Virginia is not whether online casinos are the next step in modernization and convenience. The question is whether we are prepared to accept the very real human and financial costs that come with them. Are we prepared to turn every smartphone into a casino and accept the consequences that follow?

Lawmakers must reject this expansion of online casino gambling and prioritize the long-term health and well-being of Virginia families over the short-term revenue promises from predatory iGaming companies. This is a decision that will shape our communities for years to come, and it is one Virginia should approach with caution and restraint.

Brianne Doura-Schawohl, a Fairfax resident, is an international problem gambling advocate and expert. She is the founder and CEO of Doura-Schawohl Consulting LLC, in addition to being the director of the national Campaign for Fairer Gambling.

The post Problem gambling expert: Pocket casinos put Virginians at risk appeared first on Cardinal News.

Here are some of the top headlines from other news outlets around Virginia. Some content may be behind a metered paywall:

Culture:

The Lovings’ legal fight is now featured on the U.S. Civil Rights Trail. — WVTF/Radio IQ.

Politics:

Virginia Democrats sharpen focus on ICE limits after Spanberger’s State of the Union rebuttal. — Virginia Mercury.

Local:

Squirrels claim Richmond owes them $6.5 million for ballpark costs. — Richmond Times-Dispatch (paywall).

Woman found alive and well after vanishing on 2001 shopping trip to Martinsville taken into custody. — WMBF-TV.

Weather:

For more weather news, follow weather journalist Kevin Myatt on Twitter / X at @kevinmyattwx and sign up for his free weather email newsletter. His weekly column appears in Cardinal News each Wednesday afternoon.

The post Headlines from across the state: The Lovings’ legal fight is now featured on the U.S. Civil Rights Trail; more … appeared first on Cardinal News.

Demand is growing for aviation maintenance technicians — people who inspect, repair and maintain aircraft and their components — in Virginia and across the country. Danville Community College is working to add an aviation maintenance technology program to fill this need.

Danville already has a general aviation airport and an aviation and aeronautics workforce pipeline through programs at Averett University. 

Adding an aviation maintenance technology program will help the region’s workforce, and the airport, grow, said Marc Adelman, director of transportation for the city. 

“Having a pipeline, an established workforce available, that’s critical to most industries, especially in a specialized field like aviation,” Adelman said. 

DCC hopes to begin offering courses in the fall, teaching students flight theory, inspection techniques, troubleshooting, hands-on repair procedures and aircraft systems like electronics, engine structures and flight controls. 

The program will include both classroom instruction and laboratory and shop-based experience. 

Until then, DCC staff is creating curriculum, obtaining required certifications from the Federal Aviation Administration and working closely with Blue Ridge Community College, the only other public college in Virginia to offer this program. 

And the Danville airport is building new hangar space to make room on its campus for both Averett and DCC. 

“Our region has aircraft, pilots, and aviation activity, but not enough certified technicians to support them locally,” said Cornelius Johnson, president of DCC, in an email statement. 

“Community colleges exist to respond to real workforce needs, and aviation maintenance is a clear example of that mission in action.” 

‘Can’t grow fast enough to meet the demand’

Demand for aviation maintenance technicians is outpacing supply, according to a 2025 report from the Aeronautical Repair Station Association, the primary trade association for aviation maintenance. 

The report projected a 10% gap between supply and demand of certified mechanics for commercial aviation needs alone in 2025. 

That shortfall is expected to decrease to 6% by 2035, “but not surpass demand, representing a gap of 4,200 certificated mechanics,” the report says. This does not account for business and general aviation, “which will place additional pressure on the technical workforce.”

Adding to the demand, there’s a backlog of new aircraft and a projected 13% increase in air transport fleet over the next 10 years. Air travel has grown beyond pre-pandemic levels, the report says. 

“We are about to see a maintenance, repair and overhaul ‘super cycle’ in response to an aging fleet requiring more maintenance and increased aircraft utilization,” it says. 

Other community colleges in both Virginia and North Carolina have seen this growing demand firsthand. 

Blue Ridge Community College in Weyers Cave, the only other public college in Virginia to offer an aviation maintenance program, has had its program for 17 years. Guilford Technical Community College near Greensboro, North Carolina, just under an hour from Danville, has had one for 50 years. 

“The number of employers is growing, certainly for mechanics for airplanes in the state, but there’s also a growing aerospace industry and a growing airplane industry,” said John Downey, president of BRCC. 

“But not only that, manufacturers hire aviation mechanics, and even amusement parks hire aviation mechanics, so our graduates work in a wide variety of industries in Virginia because they’re just so talented in terms of being able to take things apart and put them back together.”

This contributes to the shortage of workers in this field, said Nick Yale, director of aviation programs at GTCC. 

“There’s all kinds of stuff you have to learn that’s applicable across the board,” Yale said. “Unfortunately, that’s part of the reason why there’s such a demand in the industry to help maintain airplanes. Some of them are leaving the industry.”

Still, it’s important for a locality that’s working to attract industry to develop this workforce, Yale said. 

“Nobody can expand and grow without a talent pipeline,” he said. “Picture any company, let’s say a manufacturer wants to move into Danville. Let’s say they’re planning on hiring 800 to 1,000 employees. … They wouldn’t consider Danville if they didn’t have a pipeline, because it’s going to be too hard for them to maintain their business.”

In the last five years, BRCC’s aviation maintenance program has had 10 to 15 graduates, Downey said. Most of the time, each graduate is hired by a different company. 

“The competition to hire these individuals is so strong that many employers are hiring one at a time,” Downey said. “If they could hire more, they would, but there aren’t enough being produced.”

Eighty-three students are enrolled in BRCC’s aviation maintenance technology program, Downey said; most are part-time students who also work while attending school.

GTCC’s program has about 190 students, Yale said, and enrollment is expected to increase.

“I can’t grow fast enough to meet the demand,” he said. 

Southside Virginia has thousands of active pilots and a significant number of aircraft but a shortage of certified maintenance personnel, according to data gathered by DCC, said Melissa Mann, dean of career and technical education, and Marcio Couto, instructor of the aviation maintenance technology program, in a joint email statement to Cardinal News. 

“As a result, aircraft owners and operators often must seek maintenance services in neighboring states, creating both delays and added costs,” they wrote. “The [DCC] program is intended to help meet this local workforce demand.”

Building a partnership

Schools must obtain federal approval to offer an aviation maintenance technology program. 

The program must comply with FAA regulations, as well as institutional and accreditation requirements. Developing a program involves the creation of a curriculum that adheres to FAA standards, facility and equipment preparation, faculty qualification and multiple layers of regulatory review and approval, Mann and Couto said. 

DCC hopes to begin offering aviation maintenance courses in the fall. That timeline includes three months of coordination with the FAA and an additional month for final certification, Mann and Couto said. 

Right now, about 50% of the course syllabi are written and ready for FAA review. Laboratory and shop spaces are being prepared and equipment planning has begun, they said. 

The program is waiting for final accreditation documentation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. After that, DCC can proceed with the next regulatory steps. 

BRCC is collaborating with DCC to get this program up and running in Danville, Downey said. 

The FAA certification isn’t the only barrier to creating an aviation maintenance program. There’s also a huge operating cost because of the amount of space and equipment needed. 

Downey didn’t have an exact figure for the operating cost of the aviation maintenance program at BRCC, but “it’s easily over a million dollars” to set up all the equipment and hire the faculty, he said. 

The high operating cost of these programs is another reason that it’s beneficial for the two community colleges to work together, Downey said. 

“On an ongoing basis, I think the partnership is more about regional cooperation. We’re getting demands statewide from economic developers who are working with prospective or expanding companies that need technicians,” Downey said. “Rather than re-creating more publicly funded sites across the state, we are trying to work on providing distance learning opportunities for aviation maintenance technology.”

BRCC already has FAA approval to offer courses across the state, but those programs still require an in-person lab component, he said. 

“We’re trying to work together to figure out how we can create remote labs that would then benefit the rest of the state so they’re not replicating the whole program, but we’re offering some instruction distance learning,” Downey said. 

This will also make the program more financially accessible for students, he said. 

Students at BRCC pay about $5,000 per year to attend the school, and there is no additional cost to enroll in the aviation maintenance program, Downey said. 

At DCC, tuition for a full-time student is about $2,570, not including living expenses. 

At Liberty University, a private institution with an aviation maintenance curriculum, annual tuition is $25,000, not including room and board costs. 

“Our programs are going to be far more accessible for a wider range of students than programs that are privately funded,” Downey said. “For our students, especially students who otherwise might not be able to go to aviation maintenance school, it gives them access to a high-pay career that is in such high demand.”

Wages vary depending on the region, Yale said. More populous regions with larger airports usually have higher wages. 

In the Greensboro area, starting wages during training are around $26 an hour, Yale said.

“If someone decided to go to work for Delta Airlines in Atlanta or American Airlines down in Charlotte, then that same starting wage is going to be higher,” he said.

At most airlines, it takes seven to 10 years to top out as far as pay rate. At that point, salaries are usually in the high-$50,000 range, Yale said. 

Schools starting an aviation maintenance program should pay attention to local and regional demand, and then meet that demand without overgrowing it, he said. 

“Yes, people can get work in other locations, but as a community college, your job is to fill the local jobs in the local area,” he said. “You don’t want to train people to leave and support other communities.”

New hangar, training facility under construction

Averett University has had a presence at the Danville Regional Airport for decades through its flight school and aerospace management curriculums, but this will be the first time that DCC has students there as well, Adelman said. 

To make room for both schools on the airport’s campus, an additional hangar and training facility is being built, and an existing hangar is being renovated. 

It’s about a $9 million project that has been largely funded by federal and state money, Adelman said. The local contribution for the work represents about 5% of the total cost.

Averett’s program will move into the new 6,400-square-foot hangar, DCC will take over the hangar that Averett was using and students from both schools will share the training space. 

“They will be sharing classroom space, they will be sharing student lounge space, so it is really a shared-use facility in its truest sense,” Adelman said. 

DCC and Averett share a common goal of expanding aviation opportunities in the region through academic pathways, Mann and Couto said, and the two schools have discussed potential transfer opportunities.

The 3,900-square-foot hangar that DCC will move into is about 20 years old. It will be renovated with improved lighting, an industrial ceiling fan and an air compressor for the aviation maintenance program’s needs. 

The space already has an office, a shower, a bathroom and an oil-water separator in the floor, so students can change aircraft oil. 

Conversations about these projects began around five years ago, Adelman said. 

“Danville’s airport layout plan had to be modified to show that an aviation training facility building would be constructed,” he said. “That requires FAA approval. You can’t build anything on an airport without it being included or represented in the airport layout plan. … This has not been something that we flip the switch and it comes together.”

Along with staff from DCC and the airport, Adelman toured the Blue Ridge and Guilford Technical programs. He said he was surprised by the need for so much space. 

“The hangar that [BRCC] used for their training was completely filled with shop equipment,” he said. 

The program also requires several aircraft so that students can get hands-on maintenance experience. 

BRCC and GTCC work closely with nearby airports, the Shenandoah Valley Airport and the Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro, respectively. 

“That link between the airport and us as a college has been going on for many years,” Yale said. “[The Greensboro airport] uses us, as they should, whenever a new manufacturer or airline client comes to town.”

GTCC gives these clients tours of the program to share information about the workforce pipeline and how it’s growing to match industry growth, he said. 

The Shenandoah Valley Airport provides BRCC with space for the lab component of the program, storing aircraft, helicopters and other equipment, Downey said. 

Adelman said he foresees the relationship between the coming program and the Danville airport to be just as beneficial. 

“I hope that the combination of having the aviation maintenance program here and the flight school, and the ability of both to grow, will help diversify growth at the airport in the future,” he said. “It’s a major building block.”

The post Danville aviation maintenance program aims to train a workforce for an in-demand industry appeared first on Cardinal News.

Demand is growing for aviation maintenance technicians — people who inspect, repair and maintain aircraft and their components — in Virginia and across the country. Danville Community College is working to add an aviation maintenance technology program to fill this need.

Danville already has a general aviation airport and an aviation and aeronautics workforce pipeline through programs at Averett University. 

Adding an aviation maintenance technology program will help the region’s workforce, and the airport, grow, said Marc Adelman, director of transportation for the city. 

“Having a pipeline, an established workforce available, that’s critical to most industries, especially in a specialized field like aviation,” Adelman said. 

DCC hopes to begin offering courses in the fall, teaching students flight theory, inspection techniques, troubleshooting, hands-on repair procedures and aircraft systems like electronics, engine structures and flight controls. 

The program will include both classroom instruction and laboratory and shop-based experience. 

Until then, DCC staff is creating curriculum, obtaining required certifications from the Federal Aviation Administration and working closely with Blue Ridge Community College, the only other public college in Virginia to offer this program. 

And the Danville airport is building new hangar space to make room on its campus for both Averett and DCC. 

“Our region has aircraft, pilots, and aviation activity, but not enough certified technicians to support them locally,” said Cornelius Johnson, president of DCC, in an email statement. 

“Community colleges exist to respond to real workforce needs, and aviation maintenance is a clear example of that mission in action.” 

‘Can’t grow fast enough to meet the demand’

Demand for aviation maintenance technicians is outpacing supply, according to a 2025 report from the Aeronautical Repair Station Association, the primary trade association for aviation maintenance. 

The report projected a 10% gap between supply and demand of certified mechanics for commercial aviation needs alone in 2025. 

That shortfall is expected to decrease to 6% by 2035, “but not surpass demand, representing a gap of 4,200 certificated mechanics,” the report says. This does not account for business and general aviation, “which will place additional pressure on the technical workforce.”

Adding to the demand, there’s a backlog of new aircraft and a projected 13% increase in air transport fleet over the next 10 years. Air travel has grown beyond pre-pandemic levels, the report says. 

“We are about to see a maintenance, repair and overhaul ‘super cycle’ in response to an aging fleet requiring more maintenance and increased aircraft utilization,” it says. 

Other community colleges in both Virginia and North Carolina have seen this growing demand firsthand. 

Blue Ridge Community College in Weyers Cave, the only other public college in Virginia to offer an aviation maintenance program, has had its program for 17 years. Guilford Technical Community College near Greensboro, North Carolina, just under an hour from Danville, has had one for 50 years. 

“The number of employers is growing, certainly for mechanics for airplanes in the state, but there’s also a growing aerospace industry and a growing airplane industry,” said John Downey, president of BRCC. 

“But not only that, manufacturers hire aviation mechanics, and even amusement parks hire aviation mechanics, so our graduates work in a wide variety of industries in Virginia because they’re just so talented in terms of being able to take things apart and put them back together.”

This contributes to the shortage of workers in this field, said Nick Yale, director of aviation programs at GTCC. 

“There’s all kinds of stuff you have to learn that’s applicable across the board,” Yale said. “Unfortunately, that’s part of the reason why there’s such a demand in the industry to help maintain airplanes. Some of them are leaving the industry.”

Still, it’s important for a locality that’s working to attract industry to develop this workforce, Yale said. 

“Nobody can expand and grow without a talent pipeline,” he said. “Picture any company, let’s say a manufacturer wants to move into Danville. Let’s say they’re planning on hiring 800 to 1,000 employees. … They wouldn’t consider Danville if they didn’t have a pipeline, because it’s going to be too hard for them to maintain their business.”

In the last five years, BRCC’s aviation maintenance program has had 10 to 15 graduates, Downey said. Most of the time, each graduate is hired by a different company. 

“The competition to hire these individuals is so strong that many employers are hiring one at a time,” Downey said. “If they could hire more, they would, but there aren’t enough being produced.”

Eighty-three students are enrolled in BRCC’s aviation maintenance technology program, Downey said; most are part-time students who also work while attending school.

GTCC’s program has about 190 students, Yale said, and enrollment is expected to increase.

“I can’t grow fast enough to meet the demand,” he said. 

Southside Virginia has thousands of active pilots and a significant number of aircraft but a shortage of certified maintenance personnel, according to data gathered by DCC, said Melissa Mann, dean of career and technical education, and Marcio Couto, instructor of the aviation maintenance technology program, in a joint email statement to Cardinal News. 

“As a result, aircraft owners and operators often must seek maintenance services in neighboring states, creating both delays and added costs,” they wrote. “The [DCC] program is intended to help meet this local workforce demand.”

Building a partnership

Schools must obtain federal approval to offer an aviation maintenance technology program. 

The program must comply with FAA regulations, as well as institutional and accreditation requirements. Developing a program involves the creation of a curriculum that adheres to FAA standards, facility and equipment preparation, faculty qualification and multiple layers of regulatory review and approval, Mann and Couto said. 

DCC hopes to begin offering aviation maintenance courses in the fall. That timeline includes three months of coordination with the FAA and an additional month for final certification, Mann and Couto said. 

Right now, about 50% of the course syllabi are written and ready for FAA review. Laboratory and shop spaces are being prepared and equipment planning has begun, they said. 

The program is waiting for final accreditation documentation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. After that, DCC can proceed with the next regulatory steps. 

BRCC is collaborating with DCC to get this program up and running in Danville, Downey said. 

The FAA certification isn’t the only barrier to creating an aviation maintenance program. There’s also a huge operating cost because of the amount of space and equipment needed. 

Downey didn’t have an exact figure for the operating cost of the aviation maintenance program at BRCC, but “it’s easily over a million dollars” to set up all the equipment and hire the faculty, he said. 

The high operating cost of these programs is another reason that it’s beneficial for the two community colleges to work together, Downey said. 

“On an ongoing basis, I think the partnership is more about regional cooperation. We’re getting demands statewide from economic developers who are working with prospective or expanding companies that need technicians,” Downey said. “Rather than re-creating more publicly funded sites across the state, we are trying to work on providing distance learning opportunities for aviation maintenance technology.”

BRCC already has FAA approval to offer courses across the state, but those programs still require an in-person lab component, he said. 

“We’re trying to work together to figure out how we can create remote labs that would then benefit the rest of the state so they’re not replicating the whole program, but we’re offering some instruction distance learning,” Downey said. 

This will also make the program more financially accessible for students, he said. 

Students at BRCC pay about $5,000 per year to attend the school, and there is no additional cost to enroll in the aviation maintenance program, Downey said. 

At DCC, tuition for a full-time student is about $2,570, not including living expenses. 

At Liberty University, a private institution with an aviation maintenance curriculum, annual tuition is $25,000, not including room and board costs. 

“Our programs are going to be far more accessible for a wider range of students than programs that are privately funded,” Downey said. “For our students, especially students who otherwise might not be able to go to aviation maintenance school, it gives them access to a high-pay career that is in such high demand.”

Wages vary depending on the region, Yale said. More populous regions with larger airports usually have higher wages. 

In the Greensboro area, starting wages during training are around $26 an hour, Yale said.

“If someone decided to go to work for Delta Airlines in Atlanta or American Airlines down in Charlotte, then that same starting wage is going to be higher,” he said.

At most airlines, it takes seven to 10 years to top out as far as pay rate. At that point, salaries are usually in the high-$50,000 range, Yale said. 

Schools starting an aviation maintenance program should pay attention to local and regional demand, and then meet that demand without overgrowing it, he said. 

“Yes, people can get work in other locations, but as a community college, your job is to fill the local jobs in the local area,” he said. “You don’t want to train people to leave and support other communities.”

New hangar, training facility under construction

Averett University has had a presence at the Danville Regional Airport for decades through its flight school and aerospace management curriculums, but this will be the first time that DCC has students there as well, Adelman said. 

To make room for both schools on the airport’s campus, an additional hangar and training facility is being built, and an existing hangar is being renovated. 

It’s about a $9 million project that has been largely funded by federal and state money, Adelman said. The local contribution for the work represents about 5% of the total cost.

Averett’s program will move into the new 6,400-square-foot hangar, DCC will take over the hangar that Averett was using and students from both schools will share the training space. 

“They will be sharing classroom space, they will be sharing student lounge space, so it is really a shared-use facility in its truest sense,” Adelman said. 

DCC and Averett share a common goal of expanding aviation opportunities in the region through academic pathways, Mann and Couto said, and the two schools have discussed potential transfer opportunities.

The 3,900-square-foot hangar that DCC will move into is about 20 years old. It will be renovated with improved lighting, an industrial ceiling fan and an air compressor for the aviation maintenance program’s needs. 

The space already has an office, a shower, a bathroom and an oil-water separator in the floor, so students can change aircraft oil. 

Conversations about these projects began around five years ago, Adelman said. 

“Danville’s airport layout plan had to be modified to show that an aviation training facility building would be constructed,” he said. “That requires FAA approval. You can’t build anything on an airport without it being included or represented in the airport layout plan. … This has not been something that we flip the switch and it comes together.”

Along with staff from DCC and the airport, Adelman toured the Blue Ridge and Guilford Technical programs. He said he was surprised by the need for so much space. 

“The hangar that [BRCC] used for their training was completely filled with shop equipment,” he said. 

The program also requires several aircraft so that students can get hands-on maintenance experience. 

BRCC and GTCC work closely with nearby airports, the Shenandoah Valley Airport and the Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro, respectively. 

“That link between the airport and us as a college has been going on for many years,” Yale said. “[The Greensboro airport] uses us, as they should, whenever a new manufacturer or airline client comes to town.”

GTCC gives these clients tours of the program to share information about the workforce pipeline and how it’s growing to match industry growth, he said. 

The Shenandoah Valley Airport provides BRCC with space for the lab component of the program, storing aircraft, helicopters and other equipment, Downey said. 

Adelman said he foresees the relationship between the coming program and the Danville airport to be just as beneficial. 

“I hope that the combination of having the aviation maintenance program here and the flight school, and the ability of both to grow, will help diversify growth at the airport in the future,” he said. “It’s a major building block.”

The post Danville aviation maintenance program aims to train a workforce for an in-demand industry appeared first on Cardinal News.

Want more on Virginia’s population trends? We’ve collected all our demographic coverage in one place.

The most remarkable story in Virginia right now is playing out in Danville and, to a lesser extent, across neighboring parts of Southside. A city given up for dead a quarter-century ago is now becoming one of Virginia’s strongest population magnets.

Last year’s annual population estimates from the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia showed that Danville, which had been shrinking since 1990, had now gained population, however modestly. The latest population estimates now show that, in raw numbers, population growth increased by sixfold in just a year’s time. 

From 2020 to 2024, Danville’s population increase was put at 110. Now, from 2020 to 2025, it’s put at 614.

That number, though, masks the true magnitude of what’s happening in Danville.

These estimates calculate that from 2020 to 2025, Danville saw 2,261 more people move in than move out. For context, that’s more people than moved into many bigger cities, on a net-migration basis. 

Lynchburg saw a net migration of 2,006 people in that time. Roanoke, 988. (More on Roanoke’s figures later.) Danville’s net gain of 2,261 is more than all but three other cities in Virginia: Richmond at 10,893, Suffolk at 8,835 and Chesapeake at 3,570 — and remember those last two cities are geographically huge because years ago they absorbed their neighboring counties.

The only reason Danville’s population growth wasn’t higher is that it’s still an aging city, and deaths outnumbered births by 1,647.

Danville stands out in a big way, but what’s happening there is now happening across all of the southern part of Virginia: More people are now moving in than out. However, in Wednesday’s report on the latest population estimates, we published this chart of overall population gains and losses. You’ll see that much of Southside and almost all of Southwest Virginia remain in the population-losing category. The numbers for each locality so the percentage of population growth (or loss) from 2020 to 2025.

What you don’t see in that chart is how each locality is gaining or losing population, so here are two more. The first shows where births outnumber deaths, or vice versa:

And this chart shows where people moving in outnumber those moving out, or the other way around:

This is the most important one for our purposes today, because it shows that rural Virginia is now in a very different position than it once was. In all but four rural counties — Buchanan, Dickenson, Henry and Wise — there are now more people moving in than moving out. For generations, rural communities have lamented a “brain drain” as young adults move away. These numbers don’t shed light on who is moving in and out (these could be retirees moving in, for instance), but they do show that rural Virginia, aside from those four counties, is now attracting new residents. If you want to call this a “rural renaissance,” the numbers are there to support that claim. The deaths-over-births numbers can’t be helped (with aging populations, don’t expect a baby boom in these places), but new residents are “voting with their feet” to move in, so that seems a big endorsement for these localities. If enough of these new residents are of child-bearing age, perhaps someday there will be a modest baby boom in these communities. 

The counties that are losing population may still be losing population due to the high ratio of deaths to births, they’re just not losing as much population as they once were. The moving van is helping to make up for the hearse. Virginia’s net out-migration problem is no longer rural Virginia, it’s Fairfax County — and, to a lesser extent, Alexandria and the cities of Hampton Roads.

Fairfax’s overall losses are small (2,795 since 2020), although any population losses in the state’s biggest county demand attention because Fairfax is a county that hasn’t lost population since Andrew Jackson was president. The important thing is how Fairfax is losing population: It’s through people moving out. From 2020 to 2025, Fairfax saw 38,495 more people move out than move in. The only reason the county lost “only” 2,795 people is because births over deaths made up for most, but not all, of that out-migration. Virginia Beach had the state’s second-highest out-migration: The beach saw 12,522 more people move out than move in. I’ll put these figures in more context on Friday. By contrast, almost all of Virginia outside the urban crescent went the other way, with some communities, such as Danville, standing out as especially strong people magnets.

We saw some of these trends — faintly — before the pandemic. They really kicked in during and after the pandemic, although it’s unclear how much that had to do with things. Those years also coincide with the growing availability of broadband across rural Virginia (which enables remote work) and high housing prices (which are often held responsible for some of the population declines in Fairfax; existing residents may be retiring and moving out, but it’s hard for new residents to move in). 

Whatever the cause, these trends are now accelerating in many places. 

The past year has seen 16 localities switch from net out-migration to net in-migration. Of those, 12 are either in Southwest or Southside:

Locality	2020-2024 net migration	2020-2025 net migration
Bristol	-227	+345
Brunswick County	-484	+554
Charles City County	-70	+257
Covington	-23	+82
Emporia	-65	+70
Fairfax city	-248	+1,350
Floyd County	-94	+322
Fredericksburg	-581	+1,074
Greensville County	-233	+233
Halifax County	-221	+493
Pittsylvania County	-111	+121
Radford	-289	+482
Russell County	-207	+164
Sussex County	-629	+465
Tazewell County	-301	+461
Williamsburg	-344	+377

In three of the four rural areas that remain on the minus side for net out-migration, three have seen their rates of net out-migration slow — Buchanan, Dickenson, Wise — which suggests that they, too, are seeing more people move in, just not enough to switch the balance. The one exception is Henry County, which has seen net out-migration increase. 

Finally, there’s one community that merits special attention:

Roanoke: Is the Star City growing or shrinking?

The Census Bureau estimates said that from 2020-2024 the city had lost population to the tune of 2,104. The Weldon Cooper estimates said that from 2020-2024 the city had lost 504 and by the time we extended that to 2020-2025 the city had gained 75 people. I wish I had a good way to explain this but I don’t, except that the two estimates rely on different methodologies and we saw a similar discrepancy last year with Fairfax County. 

I can, though, pinpoint where these two estimates differ most: migration. Both estimates agree that in Roanoke, deaths outnumber births. Those figures rely on actual reports — birth certificates and death certificates. The migration estimates are where the issue is. The Census Bureau shows Roanoke with net out-migration; Weldon Cooper shows it with net in-migration. Migration estimates are also squishier. (There are probably whole dissertations that could be written on the differences but this will do for now.) I can’t begin to tell you which one is right and which one is wrong. What I can say is that last year Weldon Cooper showed Roanoke with 391 net in-migration and now shows that growing to 988. I’m sure that’s the figure Roanoke officials would prefer. Until we get an actual headcount in four years, we really won’t know for sure. 

If we assume Weldon Cooper is right, then Roanoke’s migration change is in line with neighboring localities, which have also seen their net in-migration figures double in a year’s time:

Locality	2020-2024 net migration	2020-2025 net migration
Botetourt County	+473	+1,094
Roanoke	+391	+988
Roanoke County	+1,143	+2,251
Salem	+525	+1,393

If Roanoke’s net migration is increasing, that would also fit the overall state trends, which sees net migration increasing almost everywhere outside the urban crescent. It doesn’t surprise me that Roanoke’s net migration would be lower than neighboring localities: Cities are generally already built out, while surrounding counties have lots of developable land. Still, someone should probably ask why even the most favorable interpretation of Roanoke’s in-migration numbers shows the city attracting fewer residents than Danville and Lynchburg, Staunton and Waynesboro, Petersburg and Winchester, all smaller cities, and why even this most optimistic estimate of Roanoke’s in-migration puts the city just barely ahead of Martinsville.

Whatever the answer there is won’t be found in these numbers.

Coming Friday: A deeper look at some of these numbers.

Want more politics and analysis? Sign up for West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter that goes out on Fridays. Sign up here:

The post Virtually all of Virginia outside Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads now sees more people moving in than moving out appeared first on Cardinal News.

Want more on Virginia’s population trends? We’ve collected all our demographic coverage in one place.

The most remarkable story in Virginia right now is playing out in Danville and, to a lesser extent, across neighboring parts of Southside. A city given up for dead a quarter-century ago is now becoming one of Virginia’s strongest population magnets.

Last year’s annual population estimates from the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia showed that Danville, which had been shrinking since 1990, had now gained population, however modestly. The latest population estimates now show that, in raw numbers, population growth increased by sixfold in just a year’s time. 

From 2020 to 2024, Danville’s population increase was put at 110. Now, from 2020 to 2025, it’s put at 614.

That number, though, masks the true magnitude of what’s happening in Danville.

These estimates calculate that from 2020 to 2025, Danville saw 2,261 more people move in than move out. For context, that’s more people than moved into many bigger cities, on a net-migration basis. 

Lynchburg saw a net migration of 2,006 people in that time. Roanoke, 988. (More on Roanoke’s figures later.) Danville’s net gain of 2,261 is more than all but three other cities in Virginia: Richmond at 10,893, Suffolk at 8,835 and Chesapeake at 3,570 — and remember those last two cities are geographically huge because years ago they absorbed their neighboring counties.

The only reason Danville’s population growth wasn’t higher is that it’s still an aging city, and deaths outnumbered births by 1,647.

Danville stands out in a big way, but what’s happening there is now happening across all of the southern part of Virginia: More people are now moving in than out. However, in Wednesday’s report on the latest population estimates, we published this chart of overall population gains and losses. You’ll see that much of Southside and almost all of Southwest Virginia remain in the population-losing category. The numbers for each locality so the percentage of population growth (or loss) from 2020 to 2025.

What you don’t see in that chart is how each locality is gaining or losing population, so here are two more. The first shows where births outnumber deaths, or vice versa:

And this chart shows where people moving in outnumber those moving out, or the other way around:

This is the most important one for our purposes today, because it shows that rural Virginia is now in a very different position than it once was. In all but four rural counties — Buchanan, Dickenson, Henry and Wise — there are now more people moving in than moving out. For generations, rural communities have lamented a “brain drain” as young adults move away. These numbers don’t shed light on who is moving in and out (these could be retirees moving in, for instance), but they do show that rural Virginia, aside from those four counties, is now attracting new residents. If you want to call this a “rural renaissance,” the numbers are there to support that claim. The deaths-over-births numbers can’t be helped (with aging populations, don’t expect a baby boom in these places), but new residents are “voting with their feet” to move in, so that seems a big endorsement for these localities. If enough of these new residents are of child-bearing age, perhaps someday there will be a modest baby boom in these communities. 

The counties that are losing population may still be losing population due to the high ratio of deaths to births, they’re just not losing as much population as they once were. The moving van is helping to make up for the hearse. Virginia’s net out-migration problem is no longer rural Virginia, it’s Fairfax County — and, to a lesser extent, Alexandria and the cities of Hampton Roads.

Fairfax’s overall losses are small (2,795 since 2020), although any population losses in the state’s biggest county demand attention because Fairfax is a county that hasn’t lost population since Andrew Jackson was president. The important thing is how Fairfax is losing population: It’s through people moving out. From 2020 to 2025, Fairfax saw 38,495 more people move out than move in. The only reason the county lost “only” 2,795 people is because births over deaths made up for most, but not all, of that out-migration. Virginia Beach had the state’s second-highest out-migration: The beach saw 12,522 more people move out than move in. I’ll put these figures in more context on Friday. By contrast, almost all of Virginia outside the urban crescent went the other way, with some communities, such as Danville, standing out as especially strong people magnets.

We saw some of these trends — faintly — before the pandemic. They really kicked in during and after the pandemic, although it’s unclear how much that had to do with things. Those years also coincide with the growing availability of broadband across rural Virginia (which enables remote work) and high housing prices (which are often held responsible for some of the population declines in Fairfax; existing residents may be retiring and moving out, but it’s hard for new residents to move in). 

Whatever the cause, these trends are now accelerating in many places. 

The past year has seen 16 localities switch from net out-migration to net in-migration. Of those, 12 are either in Southwest or Southside:

Locality	2020-2024 net migration	2020-2025 net migration
Bristol	-227	+345
Brunswick County	-484	+554
Charles City County	-70	+257
Covington	-23	+82
Emporia	-65	+70
Fairfax city	-248	+1,350
Floyd County	-94	+322
Fredericksburg	-581	+1,074
Greensville County	-233	+233
Halifax County	-221	+493
Pittsylvania County	-111	+121
Radford	-289	+482
Russell County	-207	+164
Sussex County	-629	+465
Tazewell County	-301	+461
Williamsburg	-344	+377

In three of the four rural areas that remain on the minus side for net out-migration, three have seen their rates of net out-migration slow — Buchanan, Dickenson, Wise — which suggests that they, too, are seeing more people move in, just not enough to switch the balance. The one exception is Henry County, which has seen net out-migration increase. 

Finally, there’s one community that merits special attention:

Roanoke: Is the Star City growing or shrinking?

The Census Bureau estimates said that from 2020-2024 the city had lost population to the tune of 2,104. The Weldon Cooper estimates said that from 2020-2024 the city had lost 504 and by the time we extended that to 2020-2025 the city had gained 75 people. I wish I had a good way to explain this but I don’t, except that the two estimates rely on different methodologies and we saw a similar discrepancy last year with Fairfax County. 

I can, though, pinpoint where these two estimates differ most: migration. Both estimates agree that in Roanoke, deaths outnumber births. Those figures rely on actual reports — birth certificates and death certificates. The migration estimates are where the issue is. The Census Bureau shows Roanoke with net out-migration; Weldon Cooper shows it with net in-migration. Migration estimates are also squishier. (There are probably whole dissertations that could be written on the differences but this will do for now.) I can’t begin to tell you which one is right and which one is wrong. What I can say is that last year Weldon Cooper showed Roanoke with 391 net in-migration and now shows that growing to 988. I’m sure that’s the figure Roanoke officials would prefer. Until we get an actual headcount in four years, we really won’t know for sure. 

If we assume Weldon Cooper is right, then Roanoke’s migration change is in line with neighboring localities, which have also seen their net in-migration figures double in a year’s time:

Locality	2020-2024 net migration	2020-2025 net migration
Botetourt County	+473	+1,094
Roanoke	+391	+988
Roanoke County	+1,143	+2,251
Salem	+525	+1,393

If Roanoke’s net migration is increasing, that would also fit the overall state trends, which sees net migration increasing almost everywhere outside the urban crescent. It doesn’t surprise me that Roanoke’s net migration would be lower than neighboring localities: Cities are generally already built out, while surrounding counties have lots of developable land. Still, someone should probably ask why even the most favorable interpretation of Roanoke’s in-migration numbers shows the city attracting fewer residents than Danville and Lynchburg, Staunton and Waynesboro, Petersburg and Winchester, all smaller cities, and why even this most optimistic estimate of Roanoke’s in-migration puts the city just barely ahead of Martinsville.

Whatever the answer there is won’t be found in these numbers.

Coming Friday: A deeper look at some of these numbers.

Want more politics and analysis? Sign up for West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter that goes out on Fridays. Sign up here:

The post Virtually all of Virginia outside Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads now sees more people moving in than moving out appeared first on Cardinal News.

Want more on Virginia’s population trends? We’ve collected all our demographic coverage in one place.

The most remarkable story in Virginia right now is playing out in Danville and, to a lesser extent, across neighboring parts of Southside. A city given up for dead a quarter-century ago is now becoming one of Virginia’s strongest population magnets.

Last year’s annual population estimates from the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia showed that Danville, which had been shrinking since 1990, had now gained population, however modestly. The latest population estimates now show that, in raw numbers, population growth increased by sixfold in just a year’s time. 

From 2020 to 2024, Danville’s population increase was put at 110. Now, from 2020 to 2025, it’s put at 614.

That number, though, masks the true magnitude of what’s happening in Danville.

These estimates calculate that from 2020 to 2025, Danville saw 2,261 more people move in than move out. For context, that’s more people than moved into many bigger cities, on a net-migration basis. 

Lynchburg saw a net migration of 2,006 people in that time. Roanoke, 988. (More on Roanoke’s figures later.) Danville’s net gain of 2,261 is more than all but three other cities in Virginia: Richmond at 10,893, Suffolk at 8,835 and Chesapeake at 3,570 — and remember those last two cities are geographically huge because years ago they absorbed their neighboring counties.

The only reason Danville’s population growth wasn’t higher is that it’s still an aging city, and deaths outnumbered births by 1,647.

Danville stands out in a big way, but what’s happening there is now happening across all of the southern part of Virginia: More people are now moving in than out. However, in Wednesday’s report on the latest population estimates, we published this chart of overall population gains and losses. You’ll see that much of Southside and almost all of Southwest Virginia remain in the population-losing category. The numbers for each locality so the percentage of population growth (or loss) from 2020 to 2025.

What you don’t see in that chart is how each locality is gaining or losing population, so here are two more. The first shows where births outnumber deaths, or vice versa:

And this chart shows where people moving in outnumber those moving out, or the other way around:

This is the most important one for our purposes today, because it shows that rural Virginia is now in a very different position than it once was. In all but four rural counties — Buchanan, Dickenson, Henry and Wise — there are now more people moving in than moving out. For generations, rural communities have lamented a “brain drain” as young adults move away. These numbers don’t shed light on who is moving in and out (these could be retirees moving in, for instance), but they do show that rural Virginia, aside from those four counties, is now attracting new residents. If you want to call this a “rural renaissance,” the numbers are there to support that claim. The deaths-over-births numbers can’t be helped (with aging populations, don’t expect a baby boom in these places), but new residents are “voting with their feet” to move in, so that seems a big endorsement for these localities. If enough of these new residents are of child-bearing age, perhaps someday there will be a modest baby boom in these communities. 

The counties that are losing population may still be losing population due to the high ratio of deaths to births, they’re just not losing as much population as they once were. The moving van is helping to make up for the hearse. Virginia’s net out-migration problem is no longer rural Virginia, it’s Fairfax County — and, to a lesser extent, Alexandria and the cities of Hampton Roads.

Fairfax’s overall losses are small (2,795 since 2020), although any population losses in the state’s biggest county demand attention because Fairfax is a county that hasn’t lost population since Andrew Jackson was president. The important thing is how Fairfax is losing population: It’s through people moving out. From 2020 to 2025, Fairfax saw 38,495 more people move out than move in. The only reason the county lost “only” 2,795 people is because births over deaths made up for most, but not all, of that out-migration. Virginia Beach had the state’s second-highest out-migration: The beach saw 12,522 more people move out than move in. I’ll put these figures in more context on Friday. By contrast, almost all of Virginia outside the urban crescent went the other way, with some communities, such as Danville, standing out as especially strong people magnets.

We saw some of these trends — faintly — before the pandemic. They really kicked in during and after the pandemic, although it’s unclear how much that had to do with things. Those years also coincide with the growing availability of broadband across rural Virginia (which enables remote work) and high housing prices (which are often held responsible for some of the population declines in Fairfax; existing residents may be retiring and moving out, but it’s hard for new residents to move in). 

Whatever the cause, these trends are now accelerating in many places. 

The past year has seen 16 localities switch from net out-migration to net in-migration. Of those, 12 are either in Southwest or Southside:

Locality	2020-2024 net migration	2020-2025 net migration
Bristol	-227	+345
Brunswick County	-484	+554
Charles City County	-70	+257
Covington	-23	+82
Emporia	-65	+70
Fairfax city	-248	+1,350
Floyd County	-94	+322
Fredericksburg	-581	+1,074
Greensville County	-233	+233
Halifax County	-221	+493
Pittsylvania County	-111	+121
Radford	-289	+482
Russell County	-207	+164
Sussex County	-629	+465
Tazewell County	-301	+461
Williamsburg	-344	+377

In three of the four rural areas that remain on the minus side for net out-migration, three have seen their rates of net out-migration slow — Buchanan, Dickenson, Wise — which suggests that they, too, are seeing more people move in, just not enough to switch the balance. The one exception is Henry County, which has seen net out-migration increase. 

Finally, there’s one community that merits special attention:

Roanoke: Is the Star City growing or shrinking?

The Census Bureau estimates said that from 2020-2024 the city had lost population to the tune of 2,104. The Weldon Cooper estimates said that from 2020-2024 the city had lost 504 and by the time we extended that to 2020-2025 the city had gained 75 people. I wish I had a good way to explain this but I don’t, except that the two estimates rely on different methodologies and we saw a similar discrepancy last year with Fairfax County. 

I can, though, pinpoint where these two estimates differ most: migration. Both estimates agree that in Roanoke, deaths outnumber births. Those figures rely on actual reports — birth certificates and death certificates. The migration estimates are where the issue is. The Census Bureau shows Roanoke with net out-migration; Weldon Cooper shows it with net in-migration. Migration estimates are also squishier. (There are probably whole dissertations that could be written on the differences but this will do for now.) I can’t begin to tell you which one is right and which one is wrong. What I can say is that last year Weldon Cooper showed Roanoke with 391 net in-migration and now shows that growing to 988. I’m sure that’s the figure Roanoke officials would prefer. Until we get an actual headcount in four years, we really won’t know for sure. 

If we assume Weldon Cooper is right, then Roanoke’s migration change is in line with neighboring localities, which have also seen their net in-migration figures double in a year’s time:

Locality	2020-2024 net migration	2020-2025 net migration
Botetourt County	+473	+1,094
Roanoke	+391	+988
Roanoke County	+1,143	+2,251
Salem	+525	+1,393

If Roanoke’s net migration is increasing, that would also fit the overall state trends, which sees net migration increasing almost everywhere outside the urban crescent. It doesn’t surprise me that Roanoke’s net migration would be lower than neighboring localities: Cities are generally already built out, while surrounding counties have lots of developable land. Still, someone should probably ask why even the most favorable interpretation of Roanoke’s in-migration numbers shows the city attracting fewer residents than Danville and Lynchburg, Staunton and Waynesboro, Petersburg and Winchester, all smaller cities, and why even this most optimistic estimate of Roanoke’s in-migration puts the city just barely ahead of Martinsville.

Whatever the answer there is won’t be found in these numbers.

Coming Friday: A deeper look at some of these numbers.

Want more politics and analysis? Sign up for West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter that goes out on Fridays. Sign up here:

The post Virtually all of Virginia outside Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads now sees more people moving in than moving out appeared first on Cardinal News.

Want more on Virginia’s population trends? We’ve collected all our demographic coverage in one place.

The most remarkable story in Virginia right now is playing out in Danville and, to a lesser extent, across neighboring parts of Southside. A city given up for dead a quarter-century ago is now becoming one of Virginia’s strongest population magnets.

Last year’s annual population estimates from the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia showed that Danville, which had been shrinking since 1990, had now gained population, however modestly. The latest population estimates now show that, in raw numbers, population growth increased by sixfold in just a year’s time. 

From 2020 to 2024, Danville’s population increase was put at 110. Now, from 2020 to 2025, it’s put at 614.

That number, though, masks the true magnitude of what’s happening in Danville.

These estimates calculate that from 2020 to 2025, Danville saw 2,261 more people move in than move out. For context, that’s more people than moved into many bigger cities, on a net-migration basis. 

Lynchburg saw a net migration of 2,006 people in that time. Roanoke, 988. (More on Roanoke’s figures later.) Danville’s net gain of 2,261 is more than all but three other cities in Virginia: Richmond at 10,893, Suffolk at 8,835 and Chesapeake at 3,570 — and remember those last two cities are geographically huge because years ago they absorbed their neighboring counties.

The only reason Danville’s population growth wasn’t higher is that it’s still an aging city, and deaths outnumbered births by 1,647.

Danville stands out in a big way, but what’s happening there is now happening across all of the southern part of Virginia: More people are now moving in than out. However, in Wednesday’s report on the latest population estimates, we published this chart of overall population gains and losses. You’ll see that much of Southside and almost all of Southwest Virginia remain in the population-losing category. The numbers for each locality so the percentage of population growth (or loss) from 2020 to 2025.

What you don’t see in that chart is how each locality is gaining or losing population, so here are two more. The first shows where births outnumber deaths, or vice versa:

And this chart shows where people moving in outnumber those moving out, or the other way around:

This is the most important one for our purposes today, because it shows that rural Virginia is now in a very different position than it once was. In all but four rural counties — Buchanan, Dickenson, Henry and Wise — there are now more people moving in than moving out. For generations, rural communities have lamented a “brain drain” as young adults move away. These numbers don’t shed light on who is moving in and out (these could be retirees moving in, for instance), but they do show that rural Virginia, aside from those four counties, is now attracting new residents. If you want to call this a “rural renaissance,” the numbers are there to support that claim. The deaths-over-births numbers can’t be helped (with aging populations, don’t expect a baby boom in these places), but new residents are “voting with their feet” to move in, so that seems a big endorsement for these localities. If enough of these new residents are of child-bearing age, perhaps someday there will be a modest baby boom in these communities. 

The counties that are losing population may still be losing population due to the high ratio of deaths to births, they’re just not losing as much population as they once were. The moving van is helping to make up for the hearse. Virginia’s net out-migration problem is no longer rural Virginia, it’s Fairfax County — and, to a lesser extent, Alexandria and the cities of Hampton Roads.

Fairfax’s overall losses are small (2,795 since 2020), although any population losses in the state’s biggest county demand attention because Fairfax is a county that hasn’t lost population since Andrew Jackson was president. The important thing is how Fairfax is losing population: It’s through people moving out. From 2020 to 2025, Fairfax saw 38,495 more people move out than move in. The only reason the county lost “only” 2,795 people is because births over deaths made up for most, but not all, of that out-migration. Virginia Beach had the state’s second-highest out-migration: The beach saw 12,522 more people move out than move in. I’ll put these figures in more context on Friday. By contrast, almost all of Virginia outside the urban crescent went the other way, with some communities, such as Danville, standing out as especially strong people magnets.

We saw some of these trends — faintly — before the pandemic. They really kicked in during and after the pandemic, although it’s unclear how much that had to do with things. Those years also coincide with the growing availability of broadband across rural Virginia (which enables remote work) and high housing prices (which are often held responsible for some of the population declines in Fairfax; existing residents may be retiring and moving out, but it’s hard for new residents to move in). 

Whatever the cause, these trends are now accelerating in many places. 

The past year has seen 16 localities switch from net out-migration to net in-migration. Of those, 12 are either in Southwest or Southside:

Locality	2020-2024 net migration	2020-2025 net migration
Bristol	-227	+345
Brunswick County	-484	+554
Charles City County	-70	+257
Covington	-23	+82
Emporia	-65	+70
Fairfax city	-248	+1,350
Floyd County	-94	+322
Fredericksburg	-581	+1,074
Greensville County	-233	+233
Halifax County	-221	+493
Pittsylvania County	-111	+121
Radford	-289	+482
Russell County	-207	+164
Sussex County	-629	+465
Tazewell County	-301	+461
Williamsburg	-344	+377

In three of the four rural areas that remain on the minus side for net out-migration, three have seen their rates of net out-migration slow — Buchanan, Dickenson, Wise — which suggests that they, too, are seeing more people move in, just not enough to switch the balance. The one exception is Henry County, which has seen net out-migration increase. 

Finally, there’s one community that merits special attention:

Roanoke: Is the Star City growing or shrinking?

The Census Bureau estimates said that from 2020-2024 the city had lost population to the tune of 2,104. The Weldon Cooper estimates said that from 2020-2024 the city had lost 504 and by the time we extended that to 2020-2025 the city had gained 75 people. I wish I had a good way to explain this but I don’t, except that the two estimates rely on different methodologies and we saw a similar discrepancy last year with Fairfax County. 

I can, though, pinpoint where these two estimates differ most: migration. Both estimates agree that in Roanoke, deaths outnumber births. Those figures rely on actual reports — birth certificates and death certificates. The migration estimates are where the issue is. The Census Bureau shows Roanoke with net out-migration; Weldon Cooper shows it with net in-migration. Migration estimates are also squishier. (There are probably whole dissertations that could be written on the differences but this will do for now.) I can’t begin to tell you which one is right and which one is wrong. What I can say is that last year Weldon Cooper showed Roanoke with 391 net in-migration and now shows that growing to 988. I’m sure that’s the figure Roanoke officials would prefer. Until we get an actual headcount in four years, we really won’t know for sure. 

If we assume Weldon Cooper is right, then Roanoke’s migration change is in line with neighboring localities, which have also seen their net in-migration figures double in a year’s time:

Locality	2020-2024 net migration	2020-2025 net migration
Botetourt County	+473	+1,094
Roanoke	+391	+988
Roanoke County	+1,143	+2,251
Salem	+525	+1,393

If Roanoke’s net migration is increasing, that would also fit the overall state trends, which sees net migration increasing almost everywhere outside the urban crescent. It doesn’t surprise me that Roanoke’s net migration would be lower than neighboring localities: Cities are generally already built out, while surrounding counties have lots of developable land. Still, someone should probably ask why even the most favorable interpretation of Roanoke’s in-migration numbers shows the city attracting fewer residents than Danville and Lynchburg, Staunton and Waynesboro, Petersburg and Winchester, all smaller cities, and why even this most optimistic estimate of Roanoke’s in-migration puts the city just barely ahead of Martinsville.

Whatever the answer there is won’t be found in these numbers.

Coming Friday: A deeper look at some of these numbers.

Want more politics and analysis? Sign up for West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter that goes out on Fridays. Sign up here:

The post Virtually all of Virginia outside Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads now sees more people moving in than moving out appeared first on Cardinal News.

Welcome to The Pulse, a weekly roundup of health-focused news. Each Thursday, we’ll bring you updates on health policy, community surveys, new clinical studies, programs and services in Southwest and Southside Virginia.

Got a tip or story idea? Email me at emily@cardinalnews.org.

Virginia has continued to build momentum around maternal mental health in recent months.

Del. Margaret Franklin, D–Prince William County, introduced legislation during the current General Assembly session that requires health insurance carriers to cover maternal mental health screenings. The bill mandates coverage for at least one screening during pregnancy and one within the first six weeks after birth, as well as additional postpartum screenings when clinically necessary.

In addition, the legislation prohibits insurers from imposing prior authorization requirements or step therapy protocols for prescription medications used to treat maternal mental health conditions.

The House passed the bill on Feb. 17 and it has been referred to the Senate Commerce and Labor committee. 

This policy effort aligns with broader state initiatives aimed at reducing maternal mortality and improving outcomes for pregnant and postpartum individuals. Virginia ranks 33rd in the nation for postpartum depression, according to America’s Health Rankings. In 2023, about 13% of Virginia women with a recent live birth reported experiencing depressive symptoms, compared with the national average of 11.9%.

Access to care remains a significant challenge. About one-third of Virginians live in a maternal health desert, meaning they reside in a county with no access to or limited access to a hospital with obstetrics services, according to the March of Dimes. 

To address these gaps, the Virginia Health Care Foundation late last year launched It Takes a Village, a statewide maternal mental health program that offers free or low-cost counseling to pregnant and postpartum Virginians. The program provides in-person and telehealth options, with services in English and Spanish, and connects patients to a statewide network of community-based and safety-net health care partners.

Participating organizations include:

• ARROW Project based in Staunton 
• A Tree Planted Collective based in Roanoke
• ChildSavers based in Richmond
• Health Brigade based in Richmond
• The Up Center based in Suffolk
• The Women’s Center based in Fairfax 
• YWCA South Hampton Roads based in Portsmouth

Each provider offers telehealth services, and clients may contact any participating organization to request virtual maternal mental health care.

State data show some recent improvement in pregnancy-associated deaths from suicide. According to the 2024 Virginia Maternal Mortality Review, the pregnancy-associated death rate from suicide declined from 3.1 in 2021 to 2.1 in 2022. All of the suicides in 2022 occurred between 43 and 365 days after the end of pregnancy and involved women ages 15 to 29.

The Virginia Department of Health has also renewed efforts to raise awareness. Although it launched its online suicide prevention toolkit for pregnant and postpartum women in 2024, the office recently used a newsletter and social media campaign to encourage providers and community partners to promote the resource. The toolkit includes posters, informational videos and social media graphics designed to support outreach and prevention efforts.

UVa launches cervical cancer screening initiative in Southwest Virginia 

The University of Virginia launched a new initiative this month to expand cervical cancer screenings in Southwest Virginia. 

Through the Appalachian Women’s Digital Cervical Cancer Prevention Initiative, UVa partnered with Liger Medical, a Utah-based manufacturer, and the Health Wagon, a free clinic based in Wise, to bring advanced screening technology to the state’s westernmost counties.

The initiative introduces small, portable, AI-powered digital colposcopy tools that support cervical cancer screening and documentation, according to a UVa press release. Because providers can easily transport the devices, clinicians can use them in both mobile clinics and the Health Wagon’s stationary sites, expanding access to care in remote communities.

According to the release, women in Southwest Virginia experience cervical cancer incidence and mortality rates that exceed national averages, largely due to limited access to specialists, geographic isolation and barriers to follow-up care. However, the Virginia Department of Health does not provide publicly available data on cervical cancer rates in the state. 

The program will serve women in Lee, Wise, Scott, Buchanan and Dickenson counties, as well as the city of Norton.

Nurse practitioners at the Health Wagon, who are licensed to perform colposcopy procedures, will lead patient care locally. Physicians at UVa will provide consultation and oversight through telehealth platforms, creating a hybrid care model that connects rural patients to specialty expertise.

According to the release, the initiative aims to increase cervical cancer screening and colposcopy completion rates by 50% to 75%, reduce diagnostic timelines to fewer than 30 days and improve follow-up compliance through nurse navigation and virtual consultations.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Emergency Rural Health Care program and UVa Health’s Center for Telehealth funded the initiative through grant support.

The post The Pulse: Virginia expands maternal mental health and cervical cancer screening efforts appeared first on Cardinal News.

Alex Littleton, an executive at an educational nonprofit and a member of the city’s planning commission, was chosen Tuesday night to fill the vacant seat on the Bristol City Council, following a nearly four-hour council meeting in closed session.

She was one of three finalists, winning out over Rebecca Reeves, a small-business owner, and the Rev. Jackie Nophlin, a pastor and small-business owner who would have been the council’s first-ever Black member.

The vote for Littleton was 3-1, with Vice Mayor Neal Osborne casting the lone no vote. Osborne declined Wednesday to say who he supported. 

Osborne and Mayor Jake Holmes both said all of the candidates were qualified, making it a difficult choice.

“We had three super strong candidates — they all three could have done a very good job,” Holmes said. “We ultimately picked Alex Littleton. She has a great experience, great life story in the city, and we just felt like she was the best pick.”

The vote drew some boos from some in the lively crowd, with one person saying that they will remember the vote at election time in November.

Four people spoke Tuesday night in support of Nophlin, whose candidacy also drew support from six residents during the Feb. 10 council meeting.

No residents spoke at either meeting in favor of the other two candidates.

Holmes and Osborne said they knew that some people were disappointed in the vote and they heard the support for Nophlin, but they added that they also had heard from residents who backed the other two candidates.

Littleton, who grew up in Bristol, graduated from the University of Tennessee with an English degree and has a master’s degree in education from King University.

She is the vice president and chief operating officer for Communities and Schools of the Appalachian Highlands, an educational support initiative that serves more than 115 schools in 17 school districts across Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee.

She also serves on the city’s planning commission and on the board of Bristol Regional Medical Center.

Following the vote, Littleton said she’s excited to get to work as a council member and is particularly eager to start working with the rest of the council on the budget for the next fiscal year.

Littleton said she believes she was chosen because of her “history of serving Bristol in my professional roles and volunteer roles and my experience with organizational leadership and strategic planning and those sorts of things.”

Littleton, who has three children, added that she is most interested in working to make Bristol a place where people want to come and raise their families.

Service to her community was instilled in her at an early age by her parents and grandparents, including her grandfather, Howard “Red” Littleton, who she said was a city council member and mayor during the 1970s.

Littleton’s council seat was vacated Jan. 31 by Becky Nave, who accepted a new position that has increased travel demands.

Littleton will serve the remaining nearly three years of Nave’s four-year term. The next election for the seat will be in November 2028.

The post Bristol council names nonprofit executive to vacant seat appeared first on Cardinal News.

Roanoke City Public Schools received a $450,000 state grant to build a solar-powered microgrid, which will make it the first K-12 school division in Virginia to have such a system.

Solar-powered microgrids generate power from the sun and store it in batteries for future use. Each of the city’s two high schools will host 1 megawatt of solar power-generating capacity and 4 megawatt-hours of battery energy storage, according to the press release. 

Erik Curren, spokesperson for Secure Solar Futures, said the microgrid should be installed by July 2027.

The grant, which comes from the Virginia Department of Emergency Management 2026 Shelter Upgrade Assistance Fund, will be matched by $2.1 million from Secure Solar Futures, the project developer. The project will be completed at no cost to the school division, with future operating costs covered by anticipated energy savings.

The VDEM grant helps localities install, maintain or repair infrastructure related to backup energy generation for emergency shelters. Both Patrick Henry and William Fleming high schools are designated by VDEM as shelters open to the public in a storm or emergency that causes power outages, the release stated.

Secure Solar Futures is currently installing 10.1 megawatts of solar power capacity at 32 city school buildings, according to a press release from the developer and the school division. The ongoing projects, which are expected to be completed by the end of the year, are providing solar power systems and roof repairs at no cost to the division through a power purchase agreement with Secure Solar Futures.

Anthony Smith, CEO of Secure Solar Futures, said in the statement that RCPS will be the largest solar power system at any K-12 public school: “With costs falling for battery storage, we expect more schools, hospitals, and businesses to follow the example of RCPS to achieve resilience and cut their electric bills.”

The ongoing projects are expected to save the school division $60.2 million for both the power and roof repairs and replacements over 35 years, the release stated. 

“This investment strengthens our ability to keep students and families safe, even during emergency situations,” Verletta White, RCPS superintendent, said in the statement.

“By adding battery storage to our existing solar infrastructure, we are increasing the resilience of our schools and ensuring Patrick Henry and William Fleming can continue serving as emergency shelters during power outages. Projects like this reflect our commitment to staying student-focused while also making smart, sustainable decisions that support our community for the long term.”

The post Roanoke school division receives grant for solar-powered microgrid appeared first on Cardinal News.

Virginia stands at a critical moment in cannabis legalization. We have a chance to build a safe, equitable and responsible market — or we can repeat the mistakes of the past by ignoring the latest health data. The current proposal to merge the newly established Cannabis Control Authority with the existing Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control represents a dangerous institutional move that jeopardizes public well-being and threatens to derail our goals of equity and public health.

The question before our lawmakers is simple: Will we regulate cannabis based on a model of failure, or a future of public health and equity?

The popular, early legalization slogan was, “Regulate like alcohol.” However, what health scholars now recognize is that alcohol regulation, as practiced in the United States, has been a profound public health failure. The February 13th New York Times letters to the editors included two statements, one from a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and another from a director and a vice president at Partnership to End Addiction. Both letters state that alcohol regulation is not a model to emulate for cannabis. Alcohol-related consequences remain one of the leading preventable causes of death nationwide. This is not for a lack of enforcement; it is a fundamental misalignment of priorities.

Most alcohol regulators’ core mission is revenue generation and license enforcement — a dynamic known as “regulatory capture.” Alcohol regulators, focused on the market’s logic, consistently fail to track or account for the human cost of their industry. By reviewing this data locally and nationally, it is undeniable that integrating ABC with the CCA will not align with Virginia’s stated legalization values of public health. 

A national study recently found that a staggering 65% of alcohol regulatory agencies do not even mention public health in their mission statements. In Virginia, the situation is even more alarming: not only does the ABC exclude public health from its mission statement, but the 2025 Virginia ABC annual financial report mentioned public health exactly zero times. Their focus is on the bottom line, not the public good.

This prioritization is reflected in their enforcement activities. Alcohol regulators nationwide were found to be 40% more likely to mention collaborations with law enforcement than with public health agencies. They prioritize license crackdowns over a balanced approach that includes proactive public health initiatives.

In stark contrast, agencies specifically created to regulate cannabis, versus alcohol regulators, are twice as likely to collaborate with public health agencies. This shows that when given a mandate focused on a new, controlled substance, regulators naturally gravitate toward a balance of market oversight and consumer safety. Merging the CCA into the ABC destroys this potential. The two agencies can still share services as separate entities, but merging the two should set off alarms. 

This is in part why, in 2020, the Joint Legislative Audit & Review Commission report suggested the creation of a new, independent Cannabis Authority. Its purpose was to produce a better balance between industry beneficiaries and the critical goals of equity and public health. By forcing a merger, we are systematically dismantling that balance. We risk creating a system that will inevitably lead to disproportionate enforcement — a mechanism that disproportionately harms communities already targeted by a legacy of racist marijuana enforcement — while simultaneously neglecting our public health and equity goals.

Marijuana Justice has long championed a safe and equitable cannabis market, one that proactively prevents market concentration and ensures equitable inclusion. We are proud to see legislation moving forward with safety and righting past wrongs as guiding principles. But this progress will be nullified if CCA is mandated to co-regulate with a department institutionally incapable of prioritizing public health and equity.

I urge our lawmakers to stop this dangerous merger. Legislate the Cannabis Control Authority the independent power it was intended to have.

Let us reject a model of failure and LEGALIZE VIRGINIA RIGHT by choosing a future of public health and responsible regulation for Virginia by keeping the ABC out of cannabis.

Chelsea Higgs Wise is executive director of Marijuana Justice. 

The post Cannabis legalization advocate cites recipe for public health failure: Virginia must keep ABC out of cannabis appeared first on Cardinal News.

Here are some of the top headlines from other news outlets around Virginia. Some content may be behind a metered paywall:

Public safety:

After anti-Flock protest, Richmond police chief defends use of license plate readers. — The Richmonder.

Here’s how much money Virginia cities, counties made from speed cameras last year. — (Newport News) Daily Press (paywall).

Local:

Mecklenburg planners reject Turtle Cove zoning request. — The Mecklenburg Sun.

Politics:

Trump moves to remake Dulles Airport, weighing redesign proposals. — The Washington Post (paywall).

Economy:

Pause on Virginia offshore wind farm cost Dominion more than $200 million — but turbines will power up soon. — WHRO.

Weather:

For more weather news, follow weather journalist Kevin Myatt on Twitter / X at @kevinmyattwx and sign up for his free weather email newsletter. His weekly column appears in Cardinal News each Wednesday afternoon.

The post Headlines from across the state: After anti-Flock protest, Richmond police chief defends use of license plate readers; more … appeared first on Cardinal News.

It is still surreal what happened in Appomattox County a decade ago this week.

A sharply visible, classic dark cone tornado of EF-3 strength tore a path 17 miles long, damaging about 100 homes, killing one person and injuring seven others on Feb. 24, 2016.

This was February, mind you. Not spring or summer. Not hurricane remnants in September. There had been substantial snow and ice across our region just over a week earlier.

It was the first tornado of EF-3 strength to ever hit Appomattox County since the beginning of reliable tornado data in 1950, and only the third tornado of any strength.  

It was the first EF-3 tornado to affect the 40-county warning area of the National Weather Service office in Blacksburg, covering much of Southwest and Southside Virginia and extending into northwest North Carolina and southeast West Virginia, since Stoneville, N.C., was hit by one in March 1998.

Glade Spring in Washington County was hit by a deadly EF-3 in April 2011, but it’s under the umbrella of the National Weather Service office in Morristown, Tenn. Pulaski suffered a heavily damaging tornado earlier that same month, but it was rated as a strong EF-2 on the 0 (weakest, shingles lifted and windows broken) to 5 (strongest, well-constructed homes erased) Enhanced Fujita Scale.

Before Feb. 24, 2016, there had only been six tornadoes in February since 1950 in the Blacksburg office’s forecast area. That day had two, as Ararat in Patrick County also experienced an EF-1 tornado before Appomattox County was hit.

The Appomattox County tornado seemed to be the harbinger of a spate of tornadoes over our region’s Piedmont counties in the next few years.

EF-3 tornadoes would strike Lynchburg and southern Amherst County in 2018 and southern Franklin County in 2019. But those, odd as they were in intensity and as part of substantial outbreaks, hit in April, a more expected time for the infrequent tornadoes our region experiences.

Weather extremes in February 2016

February 2016 was a month of topsy-turvy contrasts for Southwest and Southside Virginia.

The month began with some areas along and west of the Blue Ridge still having lingering snow cover from a Jan. 22-23 winter storm that dumped 8-15 inches across our region, with even greater amounts of snow not far to our north with a classic nor’easter that tracked all the way from the southeast U.S. coast to off New England.

While mild early-February temperatures took care of that snow cover quickly, Arctic air re-established by mid-month, with much of the region seeing single-digit low temperatures by Valentine’s Day. This set up a double-barrel winter storm on Feb. 15-16.

The first round was a widespread snow of 4-10 inches, heaviest in and near the Roanoke and New River valleys. Milder air aloft moved in for the second round, which was mostly freezing rain changing to cold barely-above-freezing rain for many. There was tree damage and power outages, but the precipitation moved out just before it would have become a major ice storm.

The push of warmth aloft that turned single-digit lows and fluffy snow into icy slush in a couple days signaled a changing weather pattern that would set up the Feb. 24 tornado outbreak, as warm, moist air dominated the East for several days.

The early model-driven speculation about the Feb. 24 storm was that a strong low-pressure system might track far enough east to put western Virginia on its back side and bring about yet another winter storm. But as the event moved into the mid-range a few days out, it became more obvious it would track west and northwest of Virginia, putting the commonwealth in its “warm sector.”

That would mean rain and perhaps some thunderstorms. As the event moved from the mid-range to the short range, it became obvious that strong and shifting winds from the surface to aloft could give storm cells enough spin that tornadoes were at least a possibility.

It was still hard to get one’s mind around that something like what hit Appomattox County could occur.

Localized boundary fueled deadly tornado

One of the key ingredients for the Appomattox tornado was the boundary between a cold-air wedge banked against the mountains at the surface and warm, sticky air advancing northward.

While the Roanoke and New River valleys were stuck in the 40s much of the day during pouring rain on Feb. 24, some areas east and southeast of the Blue Ridge shot into the 60s.

Along the boundary between chill and warmth, horizontal atmospheric spin develops, which is ingested into storm updrafts and enhances the spin, increasing the risk of tornadoes.

That boundary intersected with a north-northeastward moving thunderstorm cell in Appomattox County. What was already a rotating thunderstorm cell that had been garnered multiple warnings for possible tornadoes gained an extreme and focused vortex of rotation that led to a deadly and destructive tornado.

El Niño was a culprit

Scanning out from the very local picture to globally, a strong El Niño was raging in the winter of 2016, influencing weather patterns worldwide.

El Niño refers to the irregularly recurring warming of equatorial Pacific sea surface temperatures, noticed for centuries along the coast of Peru and called “the little boy” for the Christ child as it was often observed near Christmas. It’s cool-water opposite, La Niña, or “the little girl,” was discovered and named in the 20^th century.

Across the southern and eastern U.S., El Niño tilted the 2015-16 winter to being warm and wet, with one of the warmest Christmas seasons on record. However, Arctic air pooled and pressed southward for the latter half of January and first half of February, resulting in the two winter storms our region experienced.

The retreating Arctic air interacting with the renewed advance of warm, moist air was a significant player on the large scale in the atmospheric setup that produced the Appomattox County tornado, as was the El Niño-driven tendency for strong storm systems to roll across the southern U.S.

Current projections are that the ongoing and weakening La Niña currently will give way to what may be a moderate to strong El Niño by next winter.

That in no way means that something like the Appomattox County tornado of 2016 is absolutely bound to happen again.

El Niño patterns do typically lean to the wet side, not necessarily a bad thing given ongoing drought. A weak to moderate El Niño combined with strong high pressure in the northern latitudes often leans to an abnormally snowy winter in our region. Even the strong El Niño of 2016 brought a couple of big snows.

We have a long time to see how the sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific and the interlinking atmospheric patterns play out before next winter. But the alternation between warm and cold we are already experiencing as February rolls into March tells us rumbly storms and maybe some spinning ones are not far ahead in our regional weather future.

Journalist Kevin Myatt has been writing about weather for 20 years. His weekly column, appearing on Wednesdays, is sponsored by Oakey’s, a family-run, locally-owned funeral home with locations throughout the Roanoke Valley.  

To submit a photo, send it to weather@cardinalnews.org or tweet it to @CardinalNewsVa or @KevinMyattWx. Please identify the location and date of the photo with each submission.

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Plans are underway to develop a data center complex in Wise County that would include approximately 2 million square feet of building space supported by on-site natural gas-fired power generation.

Officials say the Wise Innovation Hub would be built in phases over about 10 years at the county’s Lonesome Pine Regional Business and Technology Park, which also contains the existing Mineral Gap data center.

The new data center complex could create hundreds of construction jobs and ongoing operational jobs and eventually bring tens of millions of dollars in annual tax revenue to Wise County, officials say.

The project is in the early stages, and details are still being refined. In December, Red Post Energy, a Houston-based independent power producer founded last year, signed a letter of intent with the development’s venture firm, Wise Innovation Hub LLC, for Red Post to design the on-site natural gas power generation.

With that announcement now public, officials plan to increase public outreach this year.

“We’re not going to rush this. … We fully understand that our community is going to need to be involved in this process,” said Brian Falin, Wise County’s industrial development supervisor and director of the county’s industrial development authority.

The plan to have the Wise County project provide its own electricity generation comes at a time when Virginia data centers’ growing electricity usage — including who should pay for infrastructure and other costs associated with that usage — has been a major point of discussion during the General Assembly.

Co-locating natural gas power plants with data centers is a new idea in Virginia, and the extent of the involvement of the local electric utility and the state agency that regulates public utilities remains unclear.

The Wise Innovation Hub represents the latest example of the Virginia data center industry expanding outside the heavily concentrated Northern Virginia region — often called the “data center capital of the world” — to places that can offer advantages such as lower taxes and cheaper land.

Other proposals to build data centers in Southside or Southwest Virginia have been met with mixed receptions. Some residents have welcomed the potential jobs and tax revenue, while others have expressed concerns about impacts on electricity consumption, water usage and land.

Power is a primary challenge

Data centers use buildings full of computer servers and equipment to power businesses, governments and online services, including artificial intelligence, shopping and videos. All of that computing power requires large amounts of electricity.

For the Wise County project, that’s where Red Post Energy comes in. The company was founded last year by CEO Lance Medlin, a Texas native who formerly worked in the oil industry and describes himself as both an environmentalist and an industrialist.

Red Post’s plan is to independently build, own and operate power-generation facilities. In the relatively isolated and mountainous terrain of Southwest Virginia, building small, boutique power generation on site could be more cost-effective than upgrading nearby electric grid infrastructure, Medlin said.

“You have some topography that makes it hard. I won’t say hard from a construction or engineering perspective — it’s just hills and rock, right? But it makes it hard on the economics,” Medlin said. “So it’s hard to put all that labor and machinery and engineering into something that’s kind of out there a bit.”

The Wise County complex’s first 100 megawatts or so of gas generation could potentially come online in about three years and eventually scale up to 500 or 600 megawatts, he said.

For context, assuming an average home uses 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month, a 100-megawatt power plant has the capacity to power about 72,000 average homes.

Officials said the nine buildings to house data center equipment, which would each be around 240,000 square feet, would be built in phases as clients come on board.

A 2024 state report described a “typical” data center as 250,000 square feet.

Each of the nine buildings would require about 50 megawatts of power, and the electricity generation would scale up along with the buildout of the data center space.

“You’re not putting all of these buildings up at once,” said Ross Litkenhous, a development partner in the Wise Innovation Hub venture firm, co-founder of King George County-based Oasis Digital Properties and CEO of Falls Church-based Cavalry Real Estate Advisors. “We’re building in sequence and so you’re ramping up power in sequence.”

“We will build to the power load delivery. But it also requires us to bring the end users into these buildings that are the ones that are going to be buying the power. And so there’s all this mechanics and kind of choreography of how that works.”

The gas plant would supply most of its power to the data centers, but about 20% to 30% of the electricity would go back to the grid for other electricity customers to use, Medlin said.

Medlin said he believes that keeping 100% of the power only for the data center complex is “morally wrong” because it would mean using scarce resources to build power generation that doesn’t provide electricity to the wider community.

Water, gas details still in progress

Concerns about data centers often revolve around how much water they use. Some data center designs can use hundreds of thousands or even millions of gallons of water per day.

Falin said he doesn’t anticipate the Wise Innovation Hub will be a heavy user of water because of advances in the technology used to cool data center equipment.

The industrial park’s water service comes via the town of Wise, and there have been discussions with the county’s public service authority about bringing additional capacity to the park if needed, he said.

“We learned very early on that that was not going to be one of our obstacles,” Falin said.

The business park already has natural gas lines running to it, but supplying a power plant of that size likely would require upgrades, he said.

The developers are in talks with pipeline developers about addressing those infrastructure needs.

“It’s not going to be a situation where we’re going to be looking at several hundred miles of new natural gas pipelines. That’s not what’s going to be involved in this,” Falin said.

“It’s really going to be evaluating what the current infrastructure is and then evaluating what the most opportune way to get additional capacity to this site will be.”

County takes new perspective on jobs, economic development

The Lonesome Pine park totals about 400 acres, with about 300 acres available. Fully building out the data center complex would use up that remaining space, Falin said.

“When we start looking at a per-acre benefit to the county, we’re fully aware that nothing is going to give us the benefit that a data center is going to bring,” he said.

Building the power plant would likely bring 500 to 700 construction jobs to Wise County, and running the power plant would require somewhere between 140 and 260 jobs, Medlin said.

Red Post also plans to offer office space to Siemens and other technology companies to start up a technical training center in Wise County, Medlin said.

Space in the complex would be leased to multiple data center clients. Each of the complex’s nine buildings is projected to support 30 to 50 operational jobs, Falin and Litkenhous said.

Falin said those jobs won’t come all at once — and that’s a good thing.

Conversations with regional employers show they’re already facing a shortage of workers, he said.

Census data shows that Wise County’s population is declining, from 41,452 in 2010 to an estimated 34,973 in 2024.

A project that created a large number of jobs all at once, rather than in phases, “would almost be devastating,” Falin said.

“We don’t have the workforce available in the short term to fill those jobs, and that’s just going to pull employees from the other employers that we have,” he said.

More desirable, Falin said, is an investment such as a data center that brings large amounts of capital that can be taxed.

“There’s been this shift in the economic development dynamic. It always used to be you were chasing the whale job creators. You were chasing the 500, 1,000, 1,500 jobs with minimal capital investment,” Falin said.

“There’s been just a big swing in that now, in that the capital taxable investment is more of a priority for us than the huge job creators. Yes, we know we need jobs in our area, but we have to be realistic about what we can accommodate.”

Local tax rate for data centers is among the lowest

If the Wise Innovation Hub comes to fruition, it would join a relatively small but growing pool of data centers in Southwest and Southside Virginia.

Virginia is the largest data center market in the world. Most of the commonwealth’s data centers are concentrated in Northern Virginia, thanks to the region’s development of electric and internet infrastructure.

Among the better-known data centers outside that part of the commonwealth is the Microsoft facility in Mecklenburg County. It first opened in 2010 and has expanded multiple times since then.

Last year, plans for potential data centers were announced for industrial parks in Botetourt and Wythe counties.

In Botetourt County, Google bought 312 acres in the county’s Botetourt Center at Greenfield to potentially build data centers. The tech giant paid $14 million and committed another $4 million to local projects benefiting the county’s fire service, law enforcement, schools and other departments.

Water usage has become a point of contention with that project, as documents show that Google could possibly use two million to eight million gallons of water per day to mitigate the heat produced by the data centers’ computer equipment.

In Wythe County, a new company called Solis Arx plans to build data centers on a 99-acre lot in the county’s Progress Park. The developer has said water usage will remain far below the available supply because the project will use more efficient closed-loop and air-cooled systems.

Wise County has been working for years to make itself attractive to the capital investment that data centers bring, Falin said.

In addition to preparing the Lonesome Pine technology park for development, the county has one of the lowest tax rates in Virginia for data center equipment at 24 cents per $100 of assessed value.

For comparison, Mecklenburg County, home to the large Microsoft facility, has a tax rate of 66 cents.

Loudoun County — the Northern Virginia locale that is home to the largest data center market in the world, dubbed “Data Center Alley” — levies a rate of $4.15, the same as its general personal property tax rate.

Even with Wise County’s low rate, Falin said he anticipates that property and real estate taxes from each of the nine data center buildings could bring $3 million to $5 million annually in revenue.

Wise County’s total annual budget is around $83 million, and it’s been wrestling with a multimillion-dollar budget gap.

Falin said that while he believes county supervisors will solve the budget problems independently of the data center plans, building the complex has the “potential to be transformative,” even though the benefits likely won’t accrue for several years.

“It’s no secret that we’re experiencing a little bit of a budget situation right now in Wise County. We’re not desperate, but this is our opportunity to course correct on our budget situation for generations,” Falin said.

In Mecklenburg County, for example, data center taxes account for more than a third of the county’s general revenue and helped pay for a $154 million project to renovate a high school and middle school.

General Assembly debates state tax exemption

In Virginia, data centers that meet certain requirements, including investing at least $150 million and creating at least 50 jobs — or, in economically distressed localities, $70 million and 10 jobs — are exempt from paying state retail sales and use tax on computers and other equipment. The tax exemption is set to end in 2035.

As the Virginia General Assembly works out the next biennial budget, the Senate money committee has proposed ending that exemption in 2027, which the committee said could lead to nearly $1 billion in additional revenue over the biennium.

“It’s time for data centers to pay their fair share,” Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, said in a social media post.

In the House, Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax County, is carrying HB 897, which would continue the tax exemption for data centers that move away from using fossil fuels.

If that bill became law, the Wise Innovation Hub would be ineligible for the tax exemption because of its natural gas plant.

Litkenhous said Sullivan’s measure hurts efforts to build data centers in “frontier markets” such as Southwest Virginia, where the electric grid infrastructure is not as robust as it is in Northern Virginia.

On-site gas generation is “a necessary option, and in some cases the only option,” Litkenhous said.

The tax exemption also helps data center developers attract clients, he said.

“Not only are we competing with the rest of Virginia, but we are also competing with other states to attract and retain those end users,” Litkenhous said.

Details on roles of utility, state agency to be determined

Because the technology park already is zoned for industrial use, the project will not require local rezoning but will need permitting, environmental reviews and other regulatory approvals, Falin said.

It remains to be seen how Red Post’s natural gas plant would fit in with Old Dominion Power, which is the electric utility that serves the Lonesome Pine technology park, as well as with state regulations surrounding public utilities.

Drew Gardner, a spokesperson for Old Dominion Power, which is a subsidiary of Kentucky Utilities, said in a statement that the company works closely with potential new customers to evaluate their energy needs and system impacts.

“A customer seeking to connect its own power source to the electric grid and sell excess generation, whether to us or otherwise, must meet certain requirements,” Gardner said. “To the extent it is appropriate for us to do so, we work with such customers to help them understand and comply with such requirements.”

Meanwhile, Virginia’s State Corporation Commission regulates public utilities in the commonwealth, including Old Dominion Power.

If a utility proposes building a power plant to supply more energy to the electric grid, it’s up to the SCC to consider it for approval or rejection. An example is Dominion Energy’s recently approved natural gas plant in Chesterfield County.

[Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.]

On the other hand, the concept of co-locating data centers and power plants is an “emerging issue” in Virginia, said SCC spokesperson Greg Weatherford.

“Because there is no precedent or legislation to guide the SCC on this question, we can’t say what the SCC’s role would be. It may be something the Commission would decide at some point,” Weatherford said in an email.

In 2024, a developer, Balico, announced plans for a complex of multiple data center buildings plus on-site natural gas power generation in Pittsylvania County, but officials there voted down the project after months of community opposition.

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Want more on Virginia’s population trends? We’ve collected all our demographic coverage in one place.

We have a new batch of population estimates that paint a more detailed picture of trends we’ve seen developing for several years now: Virginia’s population growth remains slow, but it’s ticking up slightly as more people move into the state than move out, a continued reversal of a decades-long trend. Beneath the surface of that modest population growth, people are moving out of the Washington suburbs and into virtually all of rural Virginia.  

Those trends, which we’ve seen consistently now since the pandemic, are turning some long-held notions of Virginia’s demographics upside down:

Fairfax County continues to lose population, as it now has for every year since the 2020 census. If that continues through the rest of the decade, Fairfax will lose population for the first time in a decennial census since the 1830 count that measured the 1820s.

Danville, which has been losing population since 1990, last year turned around and posted a population gain. This year’s estimates show that population increase has not only continued, but accelerated, a remarkable turnaround for a city once laid low by the collapse of some of its major industries. 

Martinsville’s population changes aren’t as dramatic, but they’re still in the same direction: It’s also gaining population again after steadily falling since 1970.

These new numbers come from the annual estimates from the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia. They are different from the U.S. Census Bureau estimates, which also came out recently. The two estimates use different metrics, which explains the most confounding numbers: 

The Census Bureau said that Roanoke was losing population, and its population decline was on pace to rival its steep decline in the 1960s. The Weldon Cooper numbers come to the opposite conclusion: These estimates say that Roanoke, which a year ago was losing population, is now gaining population and is slightly bigger than it was in the 2020 census. If such wildly different estimates seem baffling, just remember that a year ago the two estimates differed on whether Fairfax County was gaining or losing population. Now the two agree that Fairfax is losing population. Ultimately, that’s why we have a formal headcount every 10 years and don’t rely on estimates. With the exception of those Roanoke numbers, the two sets of estimates are generally in agreement about how Virginia’s population has changed since 2020.

Here are some of the highlights from the Weldon Cooper numbers that came out Tuesday.

Virginia’s population growth has picked up as more people continue to move in than move out

For about a decade, Virginia had seen more people move out than move in. Glenn Youngkin cited that statistic repeatedly during his 2021 campaign for governor. Those numbers turned around under his governorship and now seem to be solidifying. Since the 2020 census, Virginia has added 248,714 people, Weldon Cooper says. Of that population growth, 68.4% of it has come through more people moving in than moving out, the remainder from births outnumbering deaths. The Census Bureau had more detailed numbers on how much of that comes from domestic migration (not much) and how much comes from international immigration (a lot); Weldon Cooper does not. It just says that the state has seen 170,326 more people move in than move out, without getting into where they’re from.

A year ago, Virginia’s population growth from 2020 to 2024 was 1.9%; now the growth from 2020 to 2025 is 2.9%. That’s still relatively slow population growth but is trending upwards.

The Richmond area remains the fastest-growing part of the state

The demographic story of this decade is how population growth has shifted from Northern Virginia to the localities around Richmond — and the northern Shenandoah Valley. 

The fastest-growing locality in the state remains New Kent County; its population is up 21.5% since 2020. Eight localities in all have posted double-digit growth rates; four are on the outskirts of the Richmond metro area: New Kent County, Goochland County at 15.0%, Louisa County at 12.8%, Chesterfield County at 10.1%.

In terms of raw numbers, Chesterfield County has added more new people than any other locality in the state — 36,753. Chesterfield outpaces Loudoun, which has added 25,720 people since the last census.

Smaller communities see some big gains

The Shenandoah Valley has been gaining population a long time, but now the rate has sped up. From 2020 to 2024, Staunton grew by 0.9%. Once 2020 to 2025 was factored in, growth jumped to 4.2%. Waynesboro did the same, from 3.3% to 7.9%.

We also now see population growth pushing deeper into Virginia. Lynchburg last year had grown 1.7% since the last census; now that’s up to 3.0%.

Danville, which last year saw its population decline turn around, now sees that 0.3% growth turn into 1.4% growth.

Martinsville, Radford, Roanoke and Salem were all listed last year as losing people; now they’re listed as gaining them.

The steepest population declines remain in two Southwest Virginia counties

Sussex County in Southside shows up with the steepest population decline, -8.6% since 2020, but those figures are skewed by the closure of a state prison and a change in where prisoners were counted, so doesn’t reflect the trends in the community. Let’s set Sussex aside and move on. Next come two localities in Southwest.

Buchanan County has lost 6.6% of its population since the 2020 census; Dickenson County 5.3%. 

Buchanan’s population peaked at 37,989 in 1980, at the height of the coal boom brought on by the energy crises of the 1970s. Now it’s down to 19,002, about half that, a stark example of how the decline of the coal industry has ravaged the coal-mining parts of Appalachia.

Dickenson’s decline has been longer and slower. Dickenson peaked at 23,393 in 1950; now it’s down to 13,357.

However, the more significant population losses in Virginia may be on the other end of the state, in a most unlikely place: Fairfax County. 

Fairfax County’s population losses are speeding up

On a percentage basis, the population decline in Fairfax seems fairly insignificant: -0.2% since 2020. 

However, in a place the size of Fairfax (1,147,514 people) a small percentage still works out to a lot of people. Fairfax has lost 2,795 people. That’s more than any other locality in the state. 

What really makes this important is that Northern Virginia in general, and Fairfax in particular, has been the state’s economic engine, so any negative demographic trends there will reverberate through the state’s economy, to the detriment of rural areas that depend on its revenues. We also see some impacts of this Fairfax County decline playing out in the General Assembly: There’s now a push to add Fairfax to the list of localities eligible for a casino as a way to generate additional revenue for the county.

The speed at which Fairfax’ population is shrinking has picked up. A year ago, it was estimated the county’s population was down by 714 from 2020 to 2025; now that figure has nearly quadrupled.

The traditional answer for Fairfax’s population losses has been high housing prices. These numbers come with no interpretation, so I’m sure many will follow. It’s important to note that estimates are intended to compute the population in each city and county in the state as of July 1, 2025 — which means they don’t fully capture the impact of President Donald Trump’s federal cutbacks or immigration crackdown. We should also emphasize that we were seeing these population losses in Fairfax before Trump took office for the second time; his policies may accelerate these outflows but these trends predate him. 

Population losses in many rural areas are slowing down

Virtually all of Southwest Virginia and most of Southside Virginia continue to lose population, but those population losses are slowing down. 

From 2020 to 2024, Tazewell County saw its population shrink by 1,857; from 2020 to 2025, that loss fell to 1,406, so something happened in the past year to close that gap.

Same thing in Wythe County. From 2020 to 2024, the county lost 375 people. Add in another year and its loss since 2020 decreased to 138. 

Halifax County was an even more dramatic change. From 2020 to 2024, the county lost 1,205 people but from 2020 to 2025, the county’s population was down just 654.

What’s going on? All those counties saw an influx of new residents moving in. They weren’t enough to erase the population deficit, but they were enough to reduce it.

Virginia Beach’s population losses are slowing down

The other place that has been showing up in recent years for its large population decline has been Virginia Beach. The estimates show Virginia Beach is still losing population, just not as much as before. A year ago, Virginia Beach had lost 6,505 people since the last census. Now that’s down to a loss of 5,462. 

While the Southwest and Southside counties saw their population losses slow because of an influx of new people moving in, Virginia Beach did not. The city continues to see more people moving out than moving in, and at about the same rate as before. What’s happened over the past year in Virginia Beach has been a different demographic trend — a baby boom, with the surplus of births over deaths helping to reduce the population loss.

That’s a cue for tomorrow’s edition, where I’ll take a closer look at what’s driving some of these population changes elsewhere — including the accelerating population growth in Danville and those bizarrely conflicting numbers for Roanoke. 

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