rawdog

More than one hundred tables in the Hitachi Energy Arena in Wythe County were filled recently with firearms and ammo of all shapes and sizes: handguns of a variety of different calibers, AR-15 style weapons and other long guns, rifles used for hunting and sport among them. Gun gear, holsters and other kinds of tactical equipment were for sale. And purveyors of knives were also present. A few people milled about the tables on a slow Sunday afternoon in mid-May at the Showmasters gun show, the self-proclaimed “one stop gun shop.” 

The only thing a buyer seeking to purchase a firearm from a private seller could not get that day — and did not need — was a background check from state police. 

Since October, Virginia State Police has not conducted background checks for the private sale of firearms at any of the gun shows organized by Annette Elliott, owner of Showmasters, she said. And state police were not present at the show she organized in mid-May — one of more than a dozen planned and held in Virginia in 2026 — almost a full month after a bill aimed at reestablishing universal background checks in the commonwealth was enacted. 

The General Assembly passed a bill on April 22 with an emergency enactment clause added by Gov. Abigail Spanberger to increase the legal age to purchase a handgun in Virginia from 18 to 21 years old. That bill was patroned by Del. Garrett McGuire, D-Fairfax County, who was a student on the Virginia Tech campus in 2007, when a gunman opened fire and killed 32 people while wounding 17 others.

That bill, HB 1525, aimed to reestablish universal background checks for the sale of all firearms after an injunction by the Lynchburg Circuit Court halted the checks for private sales in October — dubbed the “Lynchburg Loophole.” But one month after the bill was enacted, those checks are not happening. 

As of May 21, the Virginia State Police website said that private sale background checks are “no longer available/required” due to the October ruling. Robin Lawson, spokesperson for Virginia State Police, said they are “working diligently with the administration to effectuate the provisions of the new legislation,” when asked about the lack of checks for private firearm sales. Lawson did not respond when asked what that meant. 

McGuire said he was frustrated to learn that the checks were not happening, a month after his bill was enacted, but that he knew there would be challenges. 

“The emergency clause in HB 1525 wasn’t symbolic; it was a signal that lives are on the line right now. Nearly a month later, private firearm sales are still going unchecked, and that is unacceptable,” McGuire said in a statement. “I am working with the Governor and Attorney General, and we will not stop until background checks for private sales are fully operational so that lives can be saved.”

The origin of the ‘Lynchburg loophole’

In Virginia, firearm sales fall into two distinct categories, and each has been handled differently under state law. Sales conducted through licensed firearms dealers are required to include a mandatory background check. Dealers are also responsible for verifying identification and completing all required reporting. 

Private firearm sales occur directly between two unlicensed individuals. Unlike licensed dealers, private sellers are not subject to the same identification or reporting requirements.

Efforts to require background checks for private sales have been fraught with legal challenges in recent years.

The Virginia General Assembly passed a law in 2020 that required background checks for the sale of all firearms in the commonwealth. In order to obtain a background check, the purchaser needed to go through a licensed dealer that used the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. That system automatically rejects purchasers under 21 years old — the federal age requirement to purchase a handgun.

The legal age to purchase a handgun in Virginia was 18 years old at the time. 

That difference in age requirements between the state and federal government led to a number of legal challenges after the 2020 bill was enacted. To settle those legal challenges, a mechanism was created by the state that required Virginia State Police to attend gun shows to conduct background checks for buyers under the age of 21. State police used a different system, bypassing the NICS, that allowed purchasers between 18 and 20 years old to legally buy handguns through private sales at gun shows.

But in October, a permanent injunction granted by Lynchburg Circuit Court Judge Patrick Yeatts in an ongoing case halted all background checks for the private sale of firearms in Virginia, including sales that take place at gun shows.

No background checks for private sales 

Virginia State Police had been present at gun shows across the commonwealth for years before the Lynchburg court ruling to perform background checks of attendees seeking to purchase firearms from private sellers, including at Showmasters’ events. 

David Arthur, 68, a private gun seller, displayed an array of rifles primarily used for hunting and sport across two tables in the corner of the arena in Wytheville on that Sunday. 

Arthur has been selling firearms since he was a teenager, he said, and as a private seller he had been doing his part to facilitate background checks since 2020. When a potential buyer was interested in purchasing a firearm from him, Arthur took the firearm and the potential buyer to the area of the show where Virginia State Police was set up to conduct background checks. Both Arthur and the potential buyer would show the police their government-issued IDs and fill out forms, he said. Sometimes, if the show was busy and there were few state police, the process would take longer than the advertised “instant” background check. 

After October, however, there have been “no checks” at gun shows that Arthur has attended in Virginia. 

“They don’t even show up,” he said. 

McGuire’s bill with Spanberger’s emergency enactment clause passed the General Assembly on party-line votes. The legislation aimed to close the nearly 7-month lapse in background checks in the private sale of firearms, known as the “Lynchburg loophole.” To close that loophole, the legislation increased the legal age to buy handguns and assault firearms in Virginia to 21 years to align with the federal requirement and effectively restore universal background checks in the commonwealth. The bill includes exceptions for students in ROTC or law enforcement training.

The Lynchburg circuit court’s October injunction enjoined, or prohibited, the use of the background check system based on its finding that 18- to 20-year-olds were being discriminated against on an equal protection theory, rather than a Second Amendment basis. 

McGuire’s bill sought to solve the equal protection issue by changing the law in Virginia to increase the age to purchase a handgun from 18 to 21 years old. The passage of that law effectively eliminated that equal protection theory and the court’s basis for its injunction.

Because the court’s basis for its injunction no longer exists in Virginia law, Virginia state police should be able to begin private sale background checks once the systems are back in place for it to do so. But, almost a month after the emergency enactment, background checks for private sales have not yet begun. 

Libby Wiet, spokesperson for Spanberger, did not directly respond when asked why, a month after the emergency enactment of HB 1525, background checks for the private sale of firearms are not being conducted by state police. Virginia State Police spokespersons did not respond when asked for details of what needed to be done and when they expect the checks will resume. 

“Governor Spanberger signed a law to restore universal background checks in Virginia and help law enforcement officers keep our communities safe. These universal background checks are now required under state law, and Virginia State Police is working with the administration to begin implementing the law,” Wiet said. 

There were 113 private sales of firearms between October and May at gun shows, according to the Virginia State Police. 

Attorney General Jay Jones’ office filed a request with the Lynchburg court on May 4 seeking to dissolve the October injunction. 

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: background checks save lives,” Jones said in a statement Friday. “That’s why I fought to intervene and appeal this ruling before taking office, and why my office has continued working to lift the injunction. We remain committed to following the legal process and partnering with agencies to protect public safety and ensure our laws are applied clearly and consistently.”

Jones argued, in his request, that the passage of HB 1525 had aligned the legal age to purchase certain firearms in Virginia with the federal standard and had effectively rendered the case moot. The Lynchburg Circuit Court had not yet responded to Jones’ request as of Thursday. The Attorney General’s Office did not respond when asked what its next steps are if the circuit court rejects the request to dissolve the injunction. 

“It’s a shame that in 2026 this is even something that needs to be figured out and isn’t already law, universal background checks save lives. There is no argument against that,” McGuire said. 

The post Background checks for private firearm sales not happening, one month after bill’s emergency enactment appeared first on Cardinal News.

More than one hundred tables in the Hitachi Energy Arena in Wythe County were filled recently with firearms and ammo of all shapes and sizes: handguns of a variety of different calibers, AR-15 style weapons and other long guns, rifles used for hunting and sport among them. Gun gear, holsters and other kinds of tactical equipment were for sale. And purveyors of knives were also present. A few people milled about the tables on a slow Sunday afternoon in mid-May at the Showmasters gun show, the self-proclaimed “one stop gun shop.” 

The only thing a buyer seeking to purchase a firearm from a private seller could not get that day — and did not need — was a background check from state police. 

Since October, Virginia State Police has not conducted background checks for the private sale of firearms at any of the gun shows organized by Annette Elliott, owner of Showmasters, she said. And state police were not present at the show she organized in mid-May — one of more than a dozen planned and held in Virginia in 2026 — almost a full month after a bill aimed at reestablishing universal background checks in the commonwealth was enacted. 

The General Assembly passed a bill on April 22 with an emergency enactment clause added by Gov. Abigail Spanberger to increase the legal age to purchase a handgun in Virginia from 18 to 21 years old. That bill was patroned by Del. Garrett McGuire, D-Fairfax County, who was a student on the Virginia Tech campus in 2007, when a gunman opened fire and killed 32 people while wounding 17 others.

That bill, HB 1525, aimed to reestablish universal background checks for the sale of all firearms after an injunction by the Lynchburg Circuit Court halted the checks for private sales in October — dubbed the “Lynchburg Loophole.” But one month after the bill was enacted, those checks are not happening. 

As of May 21, the Virginia State Police website said that private sale background checks are “no longer available/required” due to the October ruling. Robin Lawson, spokesperson for Virginia State Police, said they are “working diligently with the administration to effectuate the provisions of the new legislation,” when asked about the lack of checks for private firearm sales. Lawson did not respond when asked what that meant. 

Garrett said he was frustrated to learn that the checks were not happening, a month after his bill was enacted, but that he knew there would be challenges. 

“The emergency clause in HB 1525 wasn’t symbolic; it was a signal that lives are on the line right now. Nearly a month later, private firearm sales are still going unchecked, and that is unacceptable,” Garrett said in a statement. “I am working with the Governor and Attorney General, and we will not stop until background checks for private sales are fully operational so that lives can be saved.”

The origin of the ‘Lynchburg loophole’

In Virginia, firearm sales fall into two distinct categories, and each has been handled differently under state law. Sales conducted through licensed firearms dealers are required to include a mandatory background check. Dealers are also responsible for verifying identification and completing all required reporting. 

Private firearm sales occur directly between two unlicensed individuals. Unlike licensed dealers, private sellers are not subject to the same identification or reporting requirements.

Efforts to require background checks for private sales have been fraught with legal challenges in recent years.

The Virginia General Assembly passed a law in 2020 that required background checks for the sale of all firearms in the commonwealth. In order to obtain a background check, the purchaser needed to go through a licensed dealer that used the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. That system automatically rejects purchasers under 21 years old — the federal age requirement to purchase a handgun.

The legal age to purchase a handgun in Virginia was 18 years old at the time. 

That difference in age requirements between the state and federal government led to a number of legal challenges after the 2020 bill was enacted. To settle those legal challenges, a mechanism was created by the state that required Virginia State Police to attend gun shows to conduct background checks for buyers under the age of 21. State police used a different system, bypassing the NICS, that allowed purchasers between 18 and 20 years old to legally buy handguns through private sales at gun shows.

But in October, a permanent injunction granted by Lynchburg Circuit Court Judge Patrick Yeatts in an ongoing case halted all background checks for the private sale of firearms in Virginia, including sales that take place at gun shows.

No background checks for private sales 

Virginia State Police had been present at gun shows across the commonwealth for years before the Lynchburg court ruling to perform background checks of attendees seeking to purchase firearms from private sellers, including at Showmasters’ events. 

David Arthur, 68, a private gun seller, displayed an array of rifles primarily used for hunting and sport across two tables in the corner of the arena in Wytheville on that Sunday. 

Arthur has been selling firearms since he was a teenager, he said, and as a private seller he had been doing his part to facilitate background checks since 2020. When a potential buyer was interested in purchasing a firearm from him, Arthur took the firearm and the potential buyer to the area of the show where Virginia State Police was set up to conduct background checks. Both Arthur and the potential buyer would show the police their government-issued IDs and fill out forms, he said. Sometimes, if the show was busy and there were few state police, the process would take longer than the advertised “instant” background check. 

After October, however, there have been “no checks” at gun shows that Arthur has attended in Virginia. 

“They don’t even show up,” he said. 

McGuire’s bill with Spanberger’s emergency enactment clause passed the General Assembly on party-line votes. The legislation aimed to close the nearly 7-month lapse in background checks in the private sale of firearms, known as the “Lynchburg loophole.” To close that loophole, the legislation increased the legal age to buy handguns and assault firearms in Virginia to 21 years to align with the federal requirement and effectively restore universal background checks in the commonwealth. The bill includes exceptions for students in ROTC or law enforcement training.

The Lynchburg circuit court’s October injunction enjoined, or prohibited, the use of the background check system based on its finding that 18- to 20-year-olds were being discriminated against on an equal protection theory, rather than a Second Amendment basis. 

McGuire’s bill sought to solve the equal protection issue by changing the law in Virginia to increase the age to purchase a handgun from 18 to 21 years old. The passage of that law effectively eliminated that equal protection theory and the court’s basis for its injunction.

Because the court’s basis for its injunction no longer exists in Virginia law, Virginia state police should be able to begin private sale background checks once the systems are back in place for it to do so. But, almost a month after the emergency enactment, background checks for private sales have not yet begun. 

Libby Wiet, spokesperson for Spanberger, did not directly respond when asked why, a month after the emergency enactment of HB 1525, background checks for the private sale of firearms are not being conducted by state police. Virginia State Police spokespersons did not respond when asked for details of what needed to be done and when they expect the checks will resume. 

“Governor Spanberger signed a law to restore universal background checks in Virginia and help law enforcement officers keep our communities safe. These universal background checks are now required under state law, and Virginia State Police is working with the administration to begin implementing the law,” Wiet said. 

There were 113 private sales of firearms between October and May at gun shows, according to the Virginia State Police. 

Attorney General Jay Jones’ office filed a request with the Lynchburg court on May 4 seeking to dissolve the October injunction. 

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: background checks save lives,” Jones said in a statement Friday. “That’s why I fought to intervene and appeal this ruling before taking office, and why my office has continued working to lift the injunction. We remain committed to following the legal process and partnering with agencies to protect public safety and ensure our laws are applied clearly and consistently.”

Jones argued, in his request, that the passage of HB 1525 had aligned the legal age to purchase certain firearms in Virginia with the federal standard and had effectively rendered the case moot. The Lynchburg Circuit Court had not yet responded to Jones’ request as of Thursday. The Attorney General’s Office did not respond when asked what its next steps are if the circuit court rejects the request to dissolve the injunction. 

“It’s a shame that in 2026 this is even something that needs to be figured out and isn’t already law, universal background checks save lives. There is no argument against that,” Garrett said. 

The post Background checks for private firearm sales not happening, one month after bill’s emergency enactment appeared first on Cardinal News.

This is an installment in a monthslong reporting series on Southwest and Southside Virginia’s volunteer fire departments and rescue squads, the challenges they face, and the solutions they’re finding to serve their communities and remain the backbone of rural emergency response. 

In many Southwest and Southside communities, a handful of volunteers are the only thing standing between a neighbor’s call for help and catastrophe. 

Volunteer fire departments and rescue squads are the backbone of the emergency response system in our rural region. Paid departments and healthcare strongholds are few and far between, existing primarily in urban centers. 

At the more than 250 departments across our region, volunteers always answer the call. Yet they’re fighting a quiet crisis of declining volunteerism, evolving demands on the emergency response system, and often insufficient resources from funds to firetrucks — all of which compound and make it harder for first responders to do their job.

Cardinal News is diving into the complex world of volunteer emergency response in a monthslong project designed to find and amplify the solutions volunteers are using to address these challenges.   

In March, we surveyed our region’s firefighters and neighbors and learned that challenges are widespread, and that no department is alone in adapting to meet today’s needs of rural Virginia.

We heard from volunteers experiencing burnout due to thin rosters and more frequent medical emergency calls, departments struggling to keep pace with aging equipment on winding rural roads, and captains who feel left out of conversations with their local governments and misunderstood by their neighbors.

In urban areas where policy discussions and news coverage are concentrated, people rely on paid first responders and quick responses. They might be unfamiliar with the volunteer model of emergency response. It is largely left out of policy conversations, underreported by media, and invisible to neighbors until they have to dial 911.

Cardinal wants to change that and is participating in a program led by the Solutions Journalism Network to learn more about the type of journalism that seeks out solutions to tough challenges. We are receiving training along with 11 other nonprofit and public media outlets across the country. All will take on a solutions journalism project, and our plan at Cardinal is to hand a megaphone to volunteers — and their community partners and government representatives — with innovative ideas.

Solutions journalism combines reporting on problems with reporting on potential and existing solutions. 

You may have seen this approach in Cardinal’s coverage before — like this story about improving chronic absenteeism in schools — but this upcoming project will be our newsroom’s first long-term solutions series focused on one topic. 

We hope that this coverage leaves you with information about what’s working and energy to make a difference where you can.

When communities have information about what can be done better, inaction is harder to defend.

Cardinal News isn’t coming up with the solutions to the problems faced by volunteer fire departments in our region. We’re looking at what’s working and how it’s working, along with its limitations and its impact.

What to expect

Starting in June, you can expect to see stories and videos every month through the end of the year. 

Emergency response services sit at the intersection of public health, rural economic vitality, workforce development, civic infrastructure and more, making them a crucial part of understanding rural Virginia today and where it’s headed tomorrow. Multiple Cardinal reporters will participate in this project, so that our coverage can span communities across our region. 

We’ll feature communities throughout Southwest and Southside Virginia with stories that include thorough research, healthy skepticism, careful contextualization and balanced perspectives.

In June, we will show you a behind-the-scenes look at Virginia’s first-ever statewide training symposium for first responders, and take a deep dive into high-school and college training programs that bolster a first responder workforce. 

Our goal is to translate solutions into actionable, accessible stories that explore the challenges of volunteer emergency services, and reach the decision-makers with the power to address them at scale.

Also, we will introduce you to the local firefighters making a difference and take you behind the scenes of how their departments serve communities. 

In the end, we hope to create a public understanding of what volunteer departments are facing so that community members have the information they need to show up differently — as potential recruits, as advocates at budget hearings, as donors to local departments, as voters who ask candidates the right questions. 

Grace Mamon and Emma Malinak are the lead reporters for this project. If you have questions, tips or feedback, reach out to grace@cardinalnews.org and emma@cardinalnews.org.

The post Cardinal News looks for solutions to volunteer emergency response system’s challenges  appeared first on Cardinal News.

Lynchburg Republicans will finally have their long-awaited showdown between two rival factions on Saturday when the party holds a nominating event to pick three candidates for the city council.

It’s hard to tell who will win, but we already know one of the losers: ranked-choice voting.

Lynchburg Republicans are trying to become the first in the state to find a way to nominate their candidates without using a state-run primary — and still meet the legal thresholds laid in a recent state law commonly known as “Helmer’s Law,” after its sponsor, Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax County. That law comes very close to requiring parties use state-run primaries for any nominations (except in special elections, where a tight calendar often precludes a formal primary with all of its early voting). Lynchburg Republicans, who don’t like the state telling them how to run things and worry that non-Republicans might vote in a primary, want to turn that “very close” into an actual path to a different process. I’ve written on that before, if you want more details. So far, they appear to be on a path toward making this work; Helmer has asked Attorney General Jay Jones for a formal opinion but Jones hasn’t replied, and may lack a legal mechanism to intervene unless some Lynchburg Republican wants to go to a Democratic attorney general and claim they qualify somehow as an “injured party” because of the rules. That seems unlikely.

Lynchburg Republicans are now on a course toward Saturday’s “firehouse primary” — which is neither in a firehouse nor is a primary in the customary sense. It’s a party-run event with a single polling location (Brookville Ruritan Club) with different voting hours (8 a.m. to 3 p.m.) and no early voting, except for a handful of “protected classes” spelled out under Helmer’s Law, most notably military personnel. Prospective voters also will be screened somehow to make sure they really are Republicans; Cardinal’s Emma Malinak will have more on this in a report later this week.

Initially, Lynchburg Republicans decided to pick their nominee through ranked-choice voting — even though they had previously gone on record against such a system. The official rationale was that, with 10 candidates seeking three nominations, they wanted to guarantee the winners were backed by a majority of those casting ballots.

Had they done so, Lynchburg Republicans would have been the first Republican unit in the state to use ranked-choice voting for a local nomination, according to state party chairman Jeff Ryer. The party used ranked-choice to pick its nominees for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general in 2021 when pandemic-era rules prevented the party from holding a convention. Republicans in the 10^th Congressional District have also used ranked-choice in the past to pick a nominee, Ryer said.

Lynchburg Republicans could have been a first with something else, too: the first Republican unit in the state to use ranked-choice voting in a race where multiple nominations are available. Last week, the party abruptly scrapped that plan and will now go with the traditional method of plurality voting. Whichever three candidates get the most votes win, regardless of whether those candidates have a majority or not.

That decision has some fascinating political implications for Lynchburg but first, for the political nerds among us, let’s look at why Lynchburg Republicans backed off from ranked-choice voting, because it might hold lessons for ranked-choice voting advocates statewide (as well as ranked-choice voting opponents).

In 2020, the General Assembly gave localities permission to use ranked-choice voting in elections for boards of supervisors or city councils. In 2023, Arlington County became the first to actually do so. In Charlottesville, Democrats used ranked-choice voting to pick nominees for the city council. So far, those are the only localities to use it, and therein lies a challenge for ranked-choice voting advocates. Ranked-choice voting is often seen as a liberal invention. It’s not; Alaska uses ranked-choice voting and Alaska is many things (cold, full of bears, and so far north that there’s an annual baseball game played at midnight when the sun is still shining) but liberal is not one of them. Still, that’s the perception and in politics, perception often doubles as reality.

This year the General Assembly passed — and Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed — a bill to expand the option of ranked-choice voting to other local offices. (For those of you keeping score at home, the sponsors were Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico County, and Del. Katrina Callsen, D-Charlottesville.) This may be one of those cases where what’s notable is the dog that’s not barking. There are lots of liberal localities around Virginia that haven’t adopted ranked-choice voting — and certainly lots of conservative ones. When (if ever) will we see more interest from some of them?

That’s what made the Lynchburg Republicans so interesting. Although their nominating process is a party-run one, the fact that they were going to use ranked-choice voting seemed, well, significant. It was certainly interesting. When the local Republican Party asked the state Republican Party for advice, the locals were directed to one of the state’s preeminent experts on ranked-choice voting: Sally Hudson, a former Democratic legislator from Charlottesville. Politics does, indeed, make for odd bedfellows. It was Hudson who advised Lynchburg Republicans that if they had 10 candidates, voters should rank only seven. That engendered some suspicion among one faction of Lynchburg Republicans, but Hudson explained it to me as a simple math thing. “With 10 candidates, it can take up to 7 rounds (10 – 3) rounds to find the winner — one round to eliminate each of the 7 losers,” she said by email. “For that reason, we only need to ask voters for 7 ranks. Their 8th, 9th, and 10th preferences will never be used in the counting process. In other words, if you really hate the 3 front-runners, the order in which you dislike them won’t matter. Since the other 3 rankings can’t be used in counting, it just makes the ballot a little simpler not to include them.”

We’re now getting close to why Lynchburg Republicans eventually decided not to use ranked-choice voting: Some of them found it too confusing. They also didn’t like the only method available to them.

Here’s where ranked-choice voting does get confusing: There are multiple ways to do this.

Steve “Doc” Troxel, a member of the balloting and counting committee for the firehouse primary, told fellow Republicans in a memo that “At our April 3rd meeting, we were discussing three different ways of counting the ballots, since each method of counting ballots produced different results from the same sample of ballots.”

That what weirds out some people: Different methods can produce different results. Ultimately, though, the state party told Lynchburg Republicans that the only method they endorsed is one commonly known as “bottom-up” ranked-choice voting, in which the last-place candidates are eliminated, in which case the candidates their supporters ranked second get the vote.

I talked to ranked-choice experts across the country and they all said that’s considered one of the least acceptable forms of ranked-choice voting. Many of them favor a system where any “surplus” votes that the winners get go to that voter’s second-place candidate.

Two members of the balloting and counting committee, led by former council member Jeff Helgeson, objected to the state party’s preferred system and wanted to invent their own. Their proposal was hard to describe; I showed the document being circulated to some ranked-choice voting experts and all said they’d never seen such a thing. “I have never heard of RCV being conducted like this,” said Andy Eggers, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, who I asked to review the plan.

In the end, the whole ranked-choice experiment was scrapped. That may be for the best.

“Ranked-choice voting doesn’t graft well onto a multiseat district,” says Jack Santucci, who teaches part time at George Washington University and is regarded as an authority on electoral systems. It can be done, but it’s often confusing. People don’t like to be confused. They understand systems where the people with the most votes win, even if it’s less than a majority — the British call this the “first past the post” system.

While ranked-choice advocates may be sorry to see Lynchburg Republicans pull back, probably better that they do so rather than proceed with a system that would confuse people — and cause public relations headaches.

Now, here’s where the high-minded rationales for ranked-choice voting collide with messy political realities. In multiseat districts, ranked-choice voting also tends to produce proportional results. Hudson went through the math with me on several systems, and concluded with: “So yes, either way, RCV is more likely to produce a split ticket than the typical block voting — where everybody gets 3 votes and the biggest block picks all 3 seats. That’s why block voting is known as a ‘winner-take-all’ voting system.”

If you were designing an electoral system that wanted to nurture the civic health of a community, and make sure everybody was represented, you might well want a system based on proportionality. However, that’s not how the real world works. There are two factions of Lynchburg Republicans that seem to pretty much hate each other — and neither side wants the other to get any seats. Each wants to sweep. They have proportionality now — incumbents Stephanie Reed and Larry Taylor are in one faction, incumbent Marty Misjuns is in another — and that’s part of the problem. They just can’t get along much of the time. It would be quite the irony if Lynchburg Republicans were to go through all these gyrations to create a new voting system and then wound up with exactly the political lineup they have now.

I have to wonder if some Lynchburg Republicans started to figure out that ranked-choice voting ran a chance of producing a split ticket and that’s why some reservations started to creep in. The complicated system that Helgeson proposed warned of exactly that, although the proposal he circulated used more hypothetical language. The ranked-choice voting academics who had a look at it questioned whether it was truly ranked choice. “It seems a search for a system that preserves the winner-take-all character” of a more conventional election, Santucci said.

Now Lynchburg Republicans have the genuine article: an old-fashioned vote where the three candidates with the most votes win, which sets up a climactic battle between the two factions. On this side, the ticket with Misjuns, Veronica Bratton and Trae Watkins. On the other side, the ticket with Reed, Taylor and Chris Boswell.

If supporters of both factions stick together, and back all three of their candidates, then one of those slates will probably defeat the other. It may be close, it may not be, but we might get some kind of finality (at least in this round) to some long-running political conflicts in Lynchburg. In political terms, this is King Kong vs. Godzilla and no, don’t read anything into those names. They’re just more interesting than using, say, the Hatfields and the McCoys, or the Capulets and the Montagues of “Romeo and Juliet” fame.

Of course, there are other scenarios. One is that the tickets run very close to each other. If that happens, and if the leading ticket (let’s call it Slate A) has a candidate who runs a little behind the others, and the ticket that runs just behind (let’s call it Slate B) has a candidate who runs somewhat ahead of the others on that slate, then it’s possible there would be a split, with two candidates from Slate A winning while the leading candidate for Slate B edges out the third candidate for Slate A. That’s an argument for supporters of each slate to make sure they back all three of their candidates, lest somebody from the other slate slip in.

So what about the other four candidates in the field: Greg Berry, Farid “FJ” Jalil, Zach Melder and Ryan Thomas? In a ranked-choice election, their voters would matter a lot — because even if those candidates got eliminated, their voters’ second or third choices would still count toward other candidates. In a ranked-choice system, even if Slate A or Slate B ran first in the opening round, it’s possible that one of those “other” candidates might eventually win as second-choice and third-choice votes are taken into account.

In the winner-take-all system, those “other” candidates only matter if one or more of them can get more voters than some of the winners on whichever slate runs best. That means, those four “other” candidates likely need a fair number of voters to refrain from straight-ticket voting and do some mixing-and-matching: I like these two candidates on this slate, but not that one, so I’m going to vote for this other candidate over here.

Of course, what those “other” candidates really need is for their voters to only vote for them — to forgo two of their votes and “single shot” them, so that their supporters don’t accidentally boost someone else who might edge them out.

When multiple seats are available, the voting requires some strategy — much like ranked-choice voting.

For more political news and analysis, see our Friday political newsletter, West of the Capital. Sign up here:

The post Lynchburg Republicans are about to have a political showdown between 2 rival factions appeared first on Cardinal News.

Lynchburg Republicans will finally have their long-awaited showdown between two rival factions on Saturday when the party holds a nominating event to pick three candidates for the city council.

It’s hard to tell who will win, but we already know one of the losers: ranked-choice voting.

Lynchburg Republicans are trying to become the first in the state to find a way to nominate their candidates without using a state-run primary — and still meet the legal thresholds laid in a recent state law commonly known as “Helmer’s Law,” after its sponsor, Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax County. That law comes very close to requiring parties use state-run primaries for any nominations (except in special elections, where a tight calendar often precludes a formal primary with all of its early voting). Lynchburg Republicans, who don’t like the state telling them how to run things and worry that non-Republicans might vote in a primary, want to turn that “very close” into an actual path to a different process. I’ve written on that before, if you want more details. So far, they appear to be on a path toward making this work; Helmer has asked Attorney General Jay Jones for a formal opinion but Jones hasn’t replied, and may lack a legal mechanism to intervene unless some Lynchburg Republican wants to go to a Democratic attorney general and claim they qualify somehow as an “injured party” because of the rules. That seems unlikely.

Lynchburg Republicans are now on a course toward Saturday’s “firehouse primary” — which is neither in a firehouse nor is a primary in the customary sense. It’s a party-run event with a single polling location (Brookville Ruritan Club) with different voting hours (8 a.m. to 3 p.m.) and no early voting, except for a handful of “protected classes” spelled out under Helmer’s Law, most notably military personnel. Prospective voters also will be screened somehow to make sure they really are Republicans; Cardinal’s Emma Malinak will have more on this in a report later this week.

Initially, Lynchburg Republicans decided to pick their nominee through ranked-choice voting — even though they had previously gone on record against such a system. The official rationale was that, with 10 candidates seeking three nominations, they wanted to guarantee the winners were backed by a majority of those casting ballots.

Had they done so, Lynchburg Republicans would have been the first Republican unit in the state to use ranked-choice voting for a local nomination, according to state party chairman Jeff Ryer. The party used ranked-choice to pick its nominees for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general in 2021 when pandemic-era rules prevented the party from holding a convention. Republicans in the 10^th Congressional District have also used ranked-choice in the past to pick a nominee, Ryer said.

Lynchburg Republicans could have been a first with something else, too: the first Republican unit in the state to use ranked-choice voting in a race where multiple nominations are available. Last week, the party abruptly scrapped that plan and will now go with the traditional method of plurality voting. Whichever three candidates get the most votes win, regardless of whether those candidates have a majority or not.

That decision has some fascinating political implications for Lynchburg but first, for the political nerds among us, let’s look at why Lynchburg Republicans backed off from ranked-choice voting, because it might hold lessons for ranked-choice voting advocates statewide (as well as ranked-choice voting opponents).

In 2020, the General Assembly gave localities permission to use ranked-choice voting in elections for boards of supervisors or city councils. In 2023, Arlington County became the first to actually do so. In Charlottesville, Democrats used ranked-choice voting to pick nominees for the city council. So far, those are the only localities to use it, and therein lies a challenge for ranked-choice voting advocates. Ranked-choice voting is often seen as a liberal invention. It’s not; Alaska uses ranked-choice voting and Alaska is many things (cold, full of bears, and so far north that there’s an annual baseball game played at midnight when the sun is still shining) but liberal is not one of them. Still, that’s the perception and in politics, perception often doubles as reality.

This year the General Assembly passed — and Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed — a bill to expand the option of ranked-choice voting to other local offices. (For those of you keeping score at home, the sponsors were Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico County, and Del. Katrina Callsen, D-Charlottesville.) This may be one of those cases where what’s notable is the dog that’s not barking. There are lots of liberal localities around Virginia that haven’t adopted ranked-choice voting — and certainly lots of conservative ones. When (if ever) will we see more interest from some of them?

That’s what made the Lynchburg Republicans so interesting. Although their nominating process is a party-run one, the fact that they were going to use ranked-choice voting seemed, well, significant. It was certainly interesting. When the local Republican Party asked the state Republican Party for advice, the locals were directed to one of the state’s preeminent experts on ranked-choice voting: Sally Hudson, a former Democratic legislator from Charlottesville. Politics does, indeed, make for odd bedfellows. It was Hudson who advised Lynchburg Republicans that if they had 10 candidates, voters should rank only seven. That engendered some suspicion among one faction of Lynchburg Republicans, but Hudson explained it to me as a simple math thing. “With 10 candidates, it can take up to 7 rounds (10 – 3) rounds to find the winner — one round to eliminate each of the 7 losers,” she said by email. “For that reason, we only need to ask voters for 7 ranks. Their 8th, 9th, and 10th preferences will never be used in the counting process. In other words, if you really hate the 3 front-runners, the order in which you dislike them won’t matter. Since the other 3 rankings can’t be used in counting, it just makes the ballot a little simpler not to include them.”

We’re now getting close to why Lynchburg Republicans eventually decided not to use ranked-choice voting: Some of them found it too confusing. They also didn’t like the only method available to them.

Here’s where ranked-choice voting does get confusing: There are multiple ways to do this.

Steve “Doc” Troxel, a member of the balloting and counting committee for the firehouse primary, told fellow Republicans in a memo that “At our April 3rd meeting, we were discussing three different ways of counting the ballots, since each method of counting ballots produced different results from the same sample of ballots.”

That what weirds out some people: Different methods can produce different results. Ultimately, though, the state party told Lynchburg Republicans that the only method they endorsed is one commonly known as “bottom-up” ranked-choice voting, in which the last-place candidates are eliminated, in which case the candidates their supporters ranked second get the vote.

I talked to ranked-choice experts across the country and they all said that’s considered one of the least acceptable forms of ranked-choice voting. Many of them favor a system where any “surplus” votes that the winners get go to that voter’s second-place candidate.

Two members of the balloting and counting committee, led by former council member Jeff Helgeson, objected to the state party’s preferred system and wanted to invent their own. Their proposal was hard to describe; I showed the document being circulated to some ranked-choice voting experts and all said they’d never seen such a thing. “I have never heard of RCV being conducted like this,” said Andy Eggers, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, who I asked to review the plan.

In the end, the whole ranked-choice experiment was scrapped. That may be for the best.

“Ranked-choice voting doesn’t graft well onto a multiseat district,” says Jack Santucci, who teaches part time at George Washington University and is regarded as an authority on electoral systems. It can be done, but it’s often confusing. People don’t like to be confused. They understand systems where the people with the most votes win, even if it’s less than a majority — the British call this the “first past the post” system.

While ranked-choice advocates may be sorry to see Lynchburg Republicans pull back, probably better that they do so rather than proceed with a system that would confuse people — and cause public relations headaches.

Now, here’s where the high-minded rationales for ranked-choice voting collide with messy political realities. In multiseat districts, ranked-choice voting also tends to produce proportional results. Hudson went through the math with me on several systems, and concluded with: “So yes, either way, RCV is more likely to produce a split ticket than the typical block voting — where everybody gets 3 votes and the biggest block picks all 3 seats. That’s why block voting is known as a ‘winner-take-all’ voting system.”

If you were designing an electoral system that wanted to nurture the civic health of a community, and make sure everybody was represented, you might well want a system based on proportionality. However, that’s not how the real world works. There are two factions of Lynchburg Republicans that seem to pretty much hate each other — and neither side wants the other to get any seats. Each wants to sweep. They have proportionality now — incumbents Stephanie Reed and Larry Taylor are in one faction, incumbent Marty Misjuns is in another — and that’s part of the problem. They just can’t get along much of the time. It would be quite the irony if Lynchburg Republicans were to go through all these gyrations to create a new voting system and then wound up with exactly the political lineup they have now.

I have to wonder if some Lynchburg Republicans started to figure out that ranked-choice voting ran a chance of producing a split ticket and that’s why some reservations started to creep in. The complicated system that Helgeson proposed warned of exactly that, although the proposal he circulated used more hypothetical language. The ranked-choice voting academics who had a look at it questioned whether it was truly ranked choice. “It seems a search for a system that preserves the winner-take-all character” of a more conventional election, Santucci said.

Now Lynchburg Republicans have the genuine article: an old-fashioned vote where the three candidates with the most votes win, which sets up a climactic battle between the two factions. On this side, the ticket with Misjuns, Veronica Bratton and Trae Watkins. On the other side, the ticket with Reed, Taylor and Chris Boswell.

If supporters of both factions stick together, and back all three of their candidates, then one of those slates will probably defeat the other. It may be close, it may not be, but we might get some kind of finality (at least in this round) to some long-running political conflicts in Lynchburg. In political terms, this is King Kong vs. Godzilla and no, don’t read anything into those names. They’re just more interesting than using, say, the Hatfields and the McCoys, or the Capulets and the Montagues of “Romeo and Juliet” fame.

Of course, there are other scenarios. One is that the tickets run very close to each other. If that happens, and if the leading ticket (let’s call it Slate A) has a candidate who runs a little behind the others, and the ticket that runs just behind (let’s call it Slate B) has a candidate who runs somewhat ahead of the others on that slate, then it’s possible there would be a split, with two candidates from Slate A winning while the leading candidate for Slate B edges out the third candidate for Slate A. That’s an argument for supporters of each slate to make sure they back all three of their candidates, lest somebody from the other slate slip in.

So what about the other four candidates in the field: Greg Berry, Farid “FJ” Jalil, Zach Melder and Ryan Thomas? In a ranked-choice election, their voters would matter a lot — because even if those candidates got eliminated, their voters’ second or third choices would still count toward other candidates. In a ranked-choice system, even if Slate A or Slate B ran first in the opening round, it’s possible that one of those “other” candidates might eventually win as second-choice and third-choice votes are taken into account.

In the winner-take-all system, those “other” candidates only matter if one or more of them can get more voters than some of the winners on whichever slate runs best. That means, those four “other” candidates likely need a fair number of voters to refrain from straight-ticket voting and do some mixing-and-matching: I like these two candidates on this slate, but not that one, so I’m going to vote for this other candidate over here.

Of course, what those “other” candidates really need is for their voters to only vote for them — to forgo two of their votes and “single shot” them, so that their supporters don’t accidentally boost someone else who might edge them out.

When multiple seats are available, the voting requires some strategy — much like ranked-choice voting.

For more political news and analysis, see our Friday political newsletter, West of the Capital. Sign up here:

The post Lynchburg Republicans are about to have a political showdown between 2 rival factions appeared first on Cardinal News.

Even after a gray, rainy weekend, Carvins Cove’s water level will remain lower than usual for the time being. The Carvins Cove Reservoir’s water level currently sits 11 feet lower than normal, Mike McEvoy, executive director of the Western Virginia Water Authority, said during a Thursday afternoon meeting. 

The Roanoke region is experiencing one of the top 10 driest periods in 133 years, according to the water authority. That’s happening as the authority is discussing changes to its drought strategy.

The authority’s reserves are still far from what would trigger Virginia’s drought assessment warnings. The Virginia Drought Management Task Force, a coalition of drought experts organized by the Department of Environmental Quality, assesses drought conditions in the state and follows guidance in a response plan.

In the state’s assessment, water reservoir storage for 120 days or more is considered to be “normal conditions,” 90 to 120 days of water would be considered “watch conditions,” 60 to 90 days is “warning conditions,” and less than 60 days represents “emergency conditions.”

The WVWA’s reservoir levels, for Carvins Cove and Spring Hollow Reservoir, hold over 500 days worth of water, according to tables shared at an authority board meeting on Thursday afternoon. 

The WVWA provides water and wastewater services to Roanoke, Roanoke County, Franklin County, Botetourt County, the towns of Boones Mill and Vinton, and contracts with Fincastle and Craig-New Castle. The authority’s water sources are the Carvins Cove Reservoir, Spring Hollow Reservoir, Crystal Spring, Beaverdam Creek Reservoir, Falling Creek Reservoir, Smith Mountain Lake, and 72 wells throughout its distribution area.

The authority’s largest reservoirs are Carvins Cove, which stores almost 6.5 billion gallons of water when full, and Spring Hollow, which holds over 3 billion gallons of water at capacity, according to the authority’s website.

“The reservoirs are doing what they’re supposed to do,” McEvoy said Thursday. “They provide that volume to get us through.”

The state does not consider these reservoirs in its assessment, Laura Schirmer, spokesperson for the water authority, said, but “it is a helpful comparison to consider locally.”

Will Bulloss, the WVWA’s chief strategy officer, said via email Friday that the authority can’t say for sure why the state does not include the authority’s reservoirs in its assessment, but that the state’s Drought Assessment and Response Plan looks at major reservoirs that support a wide variety of uses. 

The four major reservoirs that the state lists in the plan are significantly larger than the authority’s, and are located on large rivers, while Spring Hollow and Carvins Cove are primarily filled by smaller bodies of water, Bulloss said.

Carvins Cove is about 75% full as of last week, and Spring Hollow is about 89% full, according to a WVWA graphic.

Though the region will see rain throughout the holiday weekend, it’s not expected to end the “drier than normal” conditions, Schirmer wrote in an email.

McEvoy said during the meeting Thursday that the drought isn’t expected to break up until July or August. 

One factor contributing to the drought throughout the Southern and Eastern regions of the country is La Niña conditions — the cooling of sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific — that have lasted for the majority of the last six years. These conditions have historically caused dry weather for Southwest Virginia.

McEvoy said that because all of Virginia is in some measure of drought the state could require action at some point. The majority of the state, including the Roanoke region, is in “severe” or “extreme” drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.  

The WVWA is considering changes to its drought contingency plan and creating an additional tier to the authority’s cost structure, with Google soon to break ground on data centers in Botetourt County. A fourth rate tier could be added so high volume users of water pay more.

In June, Google closed a $14 million deal with Botetourt County for 312 acres in the county’s Greenfield industrial park. In March, the company officially announced that it would build a data center campus on that land, involving three data centers and other infrastructure.

An agreement between Botetourt and the Western Virginia Water Authority states that an estimated two million gallons of water could be used per day in the beginning of the project, and with potential expansions of the project, rise up to eight million gallons per day — raising questions from residents as to what might happen in case of a drought when Google is a customer of the authority. 

Questions from readers, many regarding water, have been addressed and answered here, in an FAQ that will be continuously updated by Cardinal News as more information about the project becomes available. 

During Thursday’s board meeting, McEvoy said that the current drought contingency plan is almost 20 years old, and “doesn’t recognize a higher water user like the Google project.” The current plan also doesn’t reflect capital improvements that have increased reliability, like improved interconnection between Spring Hollow and Carvins Cove, Bulloss said.

However, McEvoy said the authority is hesitant to alter that plan while the region is still experiencing a drought. 

“Authority staff are focusing attention on continued optimization of the region’s water supplies and reservoirs, along with treatment and distribution efficiencies to ensure quality service to authority customers,” Bulloss said Friday. He said the authority doesn’t want to make changes as an “overly-reactive response to current weather patterns.”

The tiered rate structure changes, McEvoy said, are being discussed in an effort to “encourage conservation” on Google’s part and to provide an “economic incentive” to be efficient with water use, authority agenda documents stated.

McEvoy said the authority will explore this next year, as he said the authority is still working with Google to figure out exactly how much water its Botetourt County project will use. 

The post The Roanoke Valley is experiencing a drought, but it’s far from raising red flags appeared first on Cardinal News.

The Martinsville City Council will hear residents’ opinions about a no-frills budget for fiscal 2026-27 when it meets on Tuesday.

If approved, the nearly $122 million budget that would take effect July 1 is about $5.5 million less than the original current-year budget, even with tax and fee increases.

The spending plan includes:

• Raising the real estate tax from 75 cents to 84 cents per $100 of assessed value. The bill on a property worth $100,000 would increase by $90. The bill on a property worth $200,000 would increase by $180.
• A $5 increase in each tier of garbage collection rates, aimed at restoring that operation to pay for itself. Without it, trash collection would mean the city would lose more than $175,000 in the coming fiscal year, according to City Manager Robert Fincher. The current household monthly bill for weekly trash pickup is currently $20.60.
• Changing electric rates by raising the power cost adjustment by 6%. A home using 1,000 kilowatt hours per month would see the monthly bill rise from $176.38 to $186.78.

Spending cuts include:

• A city employee hiring freeze, affecting nine vacant positions and any future vacancies, but not affecting public safety agencies.
• Reducing local school funding to the previous year’s level. The proposed schools’ budget is $33 million, an increase of about $1.22 million compared to the current-year budget, but that amount includes state-supported pay raises.
• Cutting departmental spending on items such as office supplies, travel and training, eliminating duplication of software costs, then asking each department to come up with additional cuts of 4%.
•  Asking employees to absorb part of the cost of a 20% group health insurance rate increase.

The administration plans to offer employees a cost-of-living pay adjustment to match state workers’ raises. However, the General Assembly has yet to pass a state budget.

Competing proposals would give state workers and public school employees either 2% or 3% raises.

According to Fincher, who became city manager in March, the budget process was complicated by last year’s revenue being overestimated by $1 million, while spending was underestimated by $4 million. Also, Fincher has noted that city revenue has lagged behind rising costs since 2020.

A public hearing on the proposed budget will begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the municipal building, 55 W. Church St.

The post Martinsville residents can comment on the $122 million city budget at Tuesday council meeting appeared first on Cardinal News.

Hello Cardinal News readers. Welcome back to Cardinal Commerce Notes, our regular feature catching you up on various recent business news items.

If you missed last week’s edition, check it out here to learn more about a new restaurant operator for Mabry Mill on the Blue Ridge Parkway, a Roanoke law firm expanding and more.

I’m always on the lookout for news tips. Please email me at matt@cardinalnews.org or connect with me on LinkedIn and message me there.

Transformer factory opens in Wytheville

JST Power Equipment has opened a transformer manufacturing facility in Wytheville, making it official with a May 19 ribbon-cutting.

The company anticipates initially employing 25 to 30 manufacturing professionals and 10 to 20 office and engineering staff, with more coming as production ramps up in the years to come, according to a news release.

The factory in Wytheville’s Fairview Industrial Park spans 45,000 square feet across two buildings. It is the 11th location for the Lake Mary, Florida-based company.

Transformers are a key part of the electrical grid, used to increase or decrease voltage as power moves from an electricity-generating plant to residential or commercial destinations, such as homes, data centers or hospitals.

“With demand for reliable power infrastructure accelerating due to electrification, grid modernization, and renewable integration, JST believes the Wytheville facility will play a critical role in helping customers deliver more resilient, efficient, and sustainable energy systems,” according to the news release.

Lynchburg upgrades GIS site

The city of Lynchburg has upgraded Parcel Viewer, its online geographic information system application.

The site is now faster, with voice search, an accessible PDF output for property reports, integrated Google Maps access and other features, according to a May 19 city news release.

GIS applications can be used to look up property assessments, changes in ownership, school zones, tax records and more. 

The city said that although Parcel Viewer was upgraded in August, further updates were needed to meet upcoming federal requirements under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Both the old and new Parcel Viewers will be available for a month. Users are asked to test the updated site and share feedback from within the application by emailing GISParcelViewerFeedback@lynchburgva.gov or by calling 434-455-3961.

Campbell County organizations to get $1M+ for projects

More than $1 million in grants from the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission are headed to Campbell County to support agriculture, business development and tourism.

“The awards reflect Campbell County’s ongoing commitment to growing its economy, strengthening its agricultural sector and supporting community assets,” the county’s office of economic development said in a news release. 

The grants were awarded at the tobacco commission’s May 12 meeting. The state commission invests in tobacco-dependent communities to help them diversify their economies.

• The Campbell County Training School Complex will get $400,000 for grounds and parking renovations to help convert its historic campus into a “vibrant, multi-purpose economic development asset,” according to the release. The complex has four circa-1920s buildings and is one of Virginia’s original 16 Rosenwald schools, which were designed to provide education to Black students during segregation.
• The Virginia Technical Institute will get $400,000 to renovate 30,000 square feet in the building to establish a small business manufacturing incubator. VTI, in Altavista, supports Liberty University’s Technical Studies program and small businesses by offering space rental, warehousing and training.
• The town of Brookneal will get $275,000 to support developing a location along the Staunton River into an outdoor tourism destination. The money will be used to prepare the property and install 12 RV sites with water, sewer and electrical hookups.
• Campbell County will receive $3,583 to launch six workshops to build business skills for local farm operators. The program is slated to start this fall.

That’s a wrap for this week. Do you know of a new business expanding or relocating in your town? Excited about a restaurant opening up soon? Maybe you’ve got an update on a story we’ve reported before. Please send me your tips and suggestions: matt@cardinalnews.org or connect with me on LinkedIn.

The post Cardinal Commerce Notes: Transformer factory opens in Wytheville appeared first on Cardinal News.

Hello Cardinal News readers. Welcome back to Cardinal Commerce Notes, our regular feature catching you up on various recent business news items.

If you missed last week’s edition, check it out here to learn more about a new restaurant operator for Mabry Mill on the Blue Ridge Parkway, a Roanoke law firm expanding and more.

I’m always on the lookout for news tips. Please email me at matt@cardinalnews.org or connect with me on LinkedIn and message me there.

Transformer factory opens in Wytheville

JST Power Equipment has opened a transformer manufacturing facility in Wytheville, making it official with a May 19 ribbon-cutting.

The company anticipates initially employing 25 to 30 manufacturing professionals and 10 to 20 office and engineering staff, with more coming as production ramps up in the years to come, according to a news release.

The factory in Wytheville’s Fairview Industrial Park spans 45,000 square feet across two buildings. It is the 11th location for the Lake Mary, Florida-based company.

Transformers are a key part of the electrical grid, used to increase or decrease voltage as power moves from an electricity-generating plant to residential or commercial destinations, such as homes, data centers or hospitals.

“With demand for reliable power infrastructure accelerating due to electrification, grid modernization, and renewable integration, JST believes the Wytheville facility will play a critical role in helping customers deliver more resilient, efficient, and sustainable energy systems,” according to the news release.

Lynchburg upgrades GIS site

The city of Lynchburg has upgraded Parcel Viewer, its online geographic information system application.

The site is now faster, with voice search, an accessible PDF output for property reports, integrated Google Maps access and other features, according to a May 19 city news release.

GIS applications can be used to look up property assessments, changes in ownership, school zones, tax records and more. 

The city said that although Parcel Viewer was upgraded in August, further updates were needed to meet upcoming federal requirements under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Both the old and new Parcel Viewers will be available for a month. Users are asked to test the updated site and share feedback from within the application by emailing GISParcelViewerFeedback@lynchburgva.gov or by calling 434-455-3961.

Campbell County organizations to get $1M+ for projects

More than $1 million in grants from the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission are headed to Campbell County to support agriculture, business development and tourism.

“The awards reflect Campbell County’s ongoing commitment to growing its economy, strengthening its agricultural sector and supporting community assets,” the county’s office of economic development said in a news release. 

The grants were awarded at the tobacco commission’s May 12 meeting. The state commission invests in tobacco-dependent communities to help them diversify their economies.

• The Campbell County Training School Complex will get $400,000 for grounds and parking renovations to help convert its historic campus into a “vibrant, multi-purpose economic development asset,” according to the release. The complex has four circa-1920s buildings and is one of Virginia’s original 16 Rosenwald schools, which were designed to provide education to Black students during segregation.
• The Virginia Technical Institute will get $400,000 to renovate 30,000 square feet in the building to establish a small business manufacturing incubator. VTI, in Altavista, supports Liberty University’s Technical Studies program and small businesses by offering space rental, warehousing and training.
• The town of Brookneal will get $275,000 to support developing a location along the Staunton River into an outdoor tourism destination. The money will be used to prepare the property and install 12 RV sites with water, sewer and electrical hookups.
• Campbell County will receive $3,583 to launch six workshops to build business skills for local farm operators. The program is slated to start this fall.

That’s a wrap for this week. Do you know of a new business expanding or relocating in your town? Excited about a restaurant opening up soon? Maybe you’ve got an update on a story we’ve reported before. Please send me your tips and suggestions: matt@cardinalnews.org or connect with me on LinkedIn.

The post Cardinal Commerce Notes: Transformer factory opens in Wytheville appeared first on Cardinal News.

Editor’s note: This is one in a series of periodic commentaries by retired college presidents on the subject of civility. They are based on the book “Rules of Civility for a Modern Society,” by Jim Davis, the former president of Shenandoah University.

Jim Davis Rule #14

To treat others as equals when one is in an advantageous position is a virtue to be cultivated.

In a rush, I approached the checkout line at Kroger’s with two items in my cart. I walked up to the cashier line because I never liked the automated checkout stations. Another shopper arrived at the line just ahead of me. His cart was overflowing. He must have had 60 small items, but he was first in line ahead of me. He had an advantageous position to use Dr. Davis’ term from Rule #14.

I groaned and thought, “He will take all day.”

The other shopper turned around and said, “You have two items. Go ahead.”

He had been there first, so I replied, “You were first. Please go ahead.”

“No, really, you go,” was his response.

I did go first and thanked him a couple of times. He waved as I left, and I waved back. I walked to my car with my two items, feeling uplifted over his action. I do not usually leave the grocery store in a great mood.

My gracious fellow shopper gave me the gift of finishing my grocery shopping and feeling good about it.

More importantly, he gave me a greater gift in that moment. He reminded me that civility is practiced in small gestures in ordinary places like a grocery checkout line. We do not need to wait around for some grand moment to be civil to others. We do not need to be told to be civil. Opportunities for civil actions show up all the time in moments and places like the check-out line.

As Richard Dehmel said, “A little kindness from person to person is better than a vast love for all humankind.” The world is a better place when we act civilly in our person-to-person relationships rather than waiting for grand and dramatic moments to act civilly.

Most people agree that civility is a worthy goal to pursue, but sometimes we do not act that way. We can be in a hurry or might be irritated by something or someone. Civil behavior is easy to push aside or forget in heated moments. Those moments are usually when we need it most.

In those stressful moments, civility gets tested when we do not treat others with consideration. After all, we are in the driver’s seat in many interactions. Why should I give up my space or my spot in line for someone else? Especially in those moments, we need to pause, be empathetic and then act civilly.

It can be hard to give up an advantageous position to be civil. We find ourselves on an interstate ramp where traffic is backed up. A waiter brings out our food, and it is lukewarm because of the kitchen. We hold an umbrella on a rainy day with soggy people around. Someone carrying delivery boxes can be waiting to pass the crosswalk. A co-worker is carrying a stack of boxes to a meeting. These moments happen all the time.

We are not required to let someone in the traffic line ease into the lane. We expect warm food in a restaurant. There is no obligation to share our umbrella. Delivery people can wait for the light just like we do. Co-workers carrying stacks of work may not be looking for our help. These are all typical moments that are ripe for a small measure of empathy and a dose of civil behavior.

Living civilly is an aspiration, and making it habitual helps us live up to the aspiration. Even if we cannot always behave that way, it is worth trying. Forming habits of civility takes both thought and willingness to act. What is required of us is situational awareness about what is going on around us. Then take a pause to empathize with others. Finally, show willingness to act. Easy to say here, but hard to practice in daily living.

We do not need to look very hard to hear about or see acts of conflict and incivility around us. We see ample confrontations on a daily basis. They are everywhere — shouting matches, muscling ahead of others, curtness to airplane gate personnel or other displays of rudeness. Sometimes incivility can take the form of impatience or assuming the intentions of others, intentions that we concoct without justification.

Small acts of civility lead to lessened conflict and more harmony, contributing to a world where confrontations are diminished. It is good news that opportunities to be civil far outnumber the actual examples of incivility. We just need to act as my fellow grocery shopper did. His virtue is worth cultivating. Rule #14 is worth following.

Michael Maxey is the retired president of Roanoke College.

The post Maxey: Civility at Kroger check out 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:

Sports:

Virginia Tech’s board of visitors will vote on formation of athletics-related LLC, Hokie Ventures. — Sports War.

Politics:

Roanoke law clerk set to become federal magistrate judge. — The Roanoke Times (paywall).

Lynchburg City Council uncomfortable with more Flock cameras. — The (Lynchburg) News & Advance (paywall).

Courts:

Roanoke lawyer runs afoul with AI-generated legal research. — The Roanoke Times (paywall).

Richmond judges refer courthouse dispute to the Virginia Supreme Court. — Richmond Times-Dispatch (paywall).

Education:

Lynchburg City Council seeks applicants for school board. — The (Lynchburg) News & Advance (paywall).

Economy:

Justices say they have secured financing to pay off loans at heart of Greenbrier dispute. —West Virginia MetroNews.

American Airlines launches new direct flight to Chicago from Tri-Cities airport. — Bristol Herald Courier (paywall).

Culture:

A Black community fled a Virginia island. Reclaiming their history opened old wounds. — The Washington Post (paywall).

Claws out as Southwest Virginia wildlife center, chicken joint owner brawl over planned expansion. — The Washington Post (paywall).

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: Virginia Tech board to vote on creating LLC for athletics appeared first on Cardinal News.

Southwest Virginia needs at least 8,600 new housing units in the short term to support regional economic development, Gov. Abigail Spanberger told several hundred regional developers, executives and local leaders Thursday morning in Wise.

Spanberger, who took office in January, was the keynote speaker for the annual Southwest Virginia Economic Forum, held at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise.

Solving the housing shortage is critical for job creation in the region, the governor said.

Speaking to journalists later, Spanberger said she recently took part in the SelectUSA Investment Summit in Washington, D.C. She encountered companies that would like to make major investments in Southwest Virginia, but they worry about whether there would be housing available for executives and employees, she said.

Spanberger added that she’s working with legislators to address the need for housing by providing more flexibility in state law for innovations, including public-private partnerships.

In other ways, Southwest Virginia already has the sort of economic development ecosystem that is necessary for success, she told the forum audience.

Spanberger noted that 18 projects creating roughly 1,500 jobs have been secured for the region within the last five years with the state’s assistance. Some have been expansions, such as the growth in Duffield of VFP, an award-winning manufacturer of power utility equipment shelters, Spanberger said.

Others have included new projects such as the Norton siting of a manufacturing plant for WRAP Technologies, which makes non-lethal public safety devices and anti-drone devices.

The governor said tourism and cultural heritage are regional economic growth success stories, sustaining nearly 12,000 tourism jobs.

Spanberger name-checked several regional music heritage attractions. She praised the Carter Fold performance venue in Scott County and noted the upcoming 25th anniversary of the Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion and next year’s 100th anniversary of the legendary 1927 recording sessions in Bristol that helped introduce mountain musicians such as the Carter Family to national audiences.

Economic growth in Virginia can’t depend on large companies, Spanberger said — it must include small businesses on Main Street. Entrepreneurs don’t just need access to capital, they need counseling, technical assistance and other state-level support, she said.

As the economy changes rapidly, Spanberger said, she seeks a state economic development plan “that works for every corner of the commonwealth.”

The governor told the forum audience that during a Wednesday discussion in Abingdon, community leaders told her they want a reliable, consistent partner at the state level who listens to them.

Virginia cannot succeed without a thriving Southwest Virginia, Spanberger said. It comes down to giving people the opportunity to make a good life while staying in, or moving back to, their hometowns in this region, Spanberger said. Virginia can and must offer an environment of stability, predictability and a reliable path forward, which matters more than financial incentives the state can put on the table to attract investment, she said.

Later in the day, Spanberger attended two events in Abingdon. She took part in a ceremonial bill signing to mark the opening of a new facility at the Appalachian Highlands Community Dental Center and she participated in a roundtable on health care at Virginia Highlands Community College with various health care leaders from around the region.

She also toured the nursing lab at VHCC.

The post Southwest Virginia needs to solve its housing shortage if it wants economic growth, new jobs, governor says appeared first on Cardinal News.

Greensville County, a rural county along the state line where Interstate 95 passes into North Carolina, has had more than its share of hard luck.

For a long time, it was known mostly as the place where criminals went to die: Until Virginia abolished the death penalty, those executions were carried out at the Greensville Correctional Center.

Greensville sits in Virginia’s timber industry belt. The Georgia-Pacific paper company once had a large presence here, which declined piece by piece until last year, when the plywood mill in Emporia shut down altogether. The empty building might have been a candidate for a successor company — except that it burned over the winter.

In the most recent unemployment reports, Greensville County has one of the highest jobless rates in Virginia: 6.6%, more than double the state average of 3.2%. Emporia, the independent city that sits within Greensville, has the state’s highest unemployment rate: 8.8%.

Now there’s more bad news — and bad luck — for Greensville County: State Secretary of Finance Mark Sickles says that a multinational company that would have brought jobs paying significantly more than the median household income in Greensville has scratched the county off its list.

Why? Because of uncertainty about Virginia’s future tax policy.

The catch: We’re talking here about data centers.

On Tuesday, Sickles appeared before the Senate Finance Committee to deliver a periodic update on state finances. He said that Virginia had lost 41,900 jobs this fiscal year, although state revenues remain $850 million ahead of what’s forecast. He warned that inflation is rising and consumer confidence is falling. He talked about how Gov. Abigail Spanberger has ordered a revised revenue forecast so the state could get a better handle on an uncertain economy.

All that made news, as it should have.

There was one other thing he said that did not get so much attention: Sickles said that due to questions over whether Virginia will continue its tax abatements for data centers, Compass Datacenters, a Texas-based company, had halted its search for two data center sites in Greensville County and/or Emporia.

This came in the context of a legislative stalemate over how data centers should be taxed. Virginia has a tax break for data centers that runs through 2035. Senate Finance Committee Chair Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, has insisted that this incentive be eliminated eight years early, meaning next year. House budget negotiators — led by House Appropriations chair Luke Torian, D-Prince William County — have likewise insisted that Virginia should keep its word and continue the incentive through the 2035 date Virginia has pledged, lest the state send an unwelcome signal to other business sectors that Virginia can’t be trusted.

The result is that the General Assembly did not produce a budget by the time it adjourned in early March. Here it is late May, and there have still been no real budget negotiations, raising the specter that Virginia won’t have a budget in time for the start of the new fiscal year on July 1. Lucas said Wednesday we would, but she also held fast to her position that this tax break needs to go.

These are easy positions for some legislators — and many activists — to take. After all, the demand for energy is one of the most pressing issues in the state, and the rapid growth of data centers is behind that — and that rapid growth is aided by the state’s tax incentives. If we did away with those, we’d slow down data center growth and maybe be in a better position to deal with the energy issues. Now come the harder complications.

The biggest of those has been known for some time, since the last time Sickles briefed the Senate Finance Committee. The Stack data center company is planning a major development at the Southern Virginia Megasite in Pittsylvania County — major as in 2,500 jobs over 30 years. Sickles warned before that the development depended on the tax abatement remaining in place. He repeated that warning this week. “They’ve said they’re not going to go forward without this tax abatement,” Sickles said. (This is also part of the performance agreement between the local industrial authority and the company.)

Lucas and state Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, pushed back against Sickles’ contention that 2,500 jobs in Southside might be at risk. They didn’t dispute that those jobs may, indeed, not happen if the state changes the rules, but they pointed out that the 2,500 jobs have to be weighed against other considerations — such as how much energy would have to be produced to service the development. If that figure is known, it hasn’t been publicly disclosed, not by Stack and not by Appalachian Power, which would be the utility providing the power. In any case, the point Deeds and Lucas are making is that those jobs wouldn’t be free — as a policy matter, the state has to decide whether the costs of providing power and other infrastructure outweigh the benefits. That’s hard math for those in Pittsylvania County who just see 2,500 jobs with promised salaries of $80,500; this in a county where employment has fallen by 16.9% over the past quarter-century and where the median household income is $54,115. Pittsylvania is also at the epicenter of solar energy growth in Virginia. It’s got more megawatts of solar panels than all but two other counties, according to the Virginia Solar Database, The once-green farmland around the Climax neighborhood of the county now glistens black with solar panels; county leaders are right to think that they’ve done their part to supply the state with power with few jobs to show for it, so why can’t they now take advantage of some of that power and cash in with what would be the biggest jobs announcement in that part of the state for generations?

Then Sickles noted that a different data center company was “looking at sites in southern Virginia — in Greensville, the Emporia area — and they quit that.” He said this involved a search to locate two data centers for Compass Datacenters. 

“That hurts Greensville County,” Gov. Abigail Spanberger said during an interview Thursday. “That hurts local revenues. That hurts local services.”

Compass did not respond to inquiries about the size of the intended projects; economic development officials say that discussions weren’t far enough along to determine a specific size. However, one thing is clear: Many officials in that part of Virginia aren’t very happy. While other — often more affluent — parts of Virginia now recoil from data centers, these rural counties in one of the most economically distressed parts of Virginia see an opportunity being taken away from them by legislators who want to shut down the tax incentives.

Keith Boswell is president of Virginia Gateway Region, the economic development group that covers a swath of eastern Southside, from Colonial Heights and Petersburg down to Emporia and Greensville County. “You’re talking down in my neck of the woods, a lot of communities are struggling to get by,” he said in an interview. These communities see a data center not as a problem to be regulated or refused but an opportunity to be secured. “That is something all nine communities in the Gateway Region have said: ‘If you can go out and bring us a data center, we want it.’”

For years, that seemed an impossible goal. No technology companies were interested in a rural part of the state. Now, as Northern Virginia essentially fills up with data centers, rural communities are starting to see more interest from data centers. “I’ve got five significant data center projects” that are interested in the Virginia Gateway Region, Boswell said. “Some are more significant than others but all of them are big, big data centers.” If changes to state tax law cause data center companies to go to other states, he said, “you’re talking about taking away an opportunity that other communities have had.” Many of the localities in the Virginia Gateway Region are also part of that solar growth zone; one of them, Brunswick County, has more solar megawatts than any other part of the state. Another, Surry County, is home to a nuclear plant, something that other communities might not want to have anything to do with. These counties are now starting to see themselves as a power-producing region and wonder why they can’t also tap into some of that power for job growth.

Del. Otto Wachsmann Jr., R-Sussex County and a legislator whose district includes much of the Virginia Gateway Region, sees a double standard: “It is apparent the rest of the state wants to push solar on our farm and forested lands to power Northern Virginia’s data centers while taking that same prospect off the table for our rural localities to consider.”

This illustrates the challenges that state legislators face in governing such a diverse state. Some localities feel they have more than enough data centers and might be happy to never see another; some don’t have any but want some. However, the energy needs that data centers have touch everyone, so the rural counties that are clamoring for data centers would be adding to the problem. It may not be a problem they created, but it’s one that they could exacerbate by insisting on their share of data center riches. When Boswell touts the prospect of landing “big, big data centers,” some hear “big, big energy demands.” Data center skeptics see an unsustainable demand for energy that needs to be restrained; some rural localities see the state’s “haves” telling the “have-nots” that they’re not allowed to pursue the same economic opportunities they have. How can these things be reconciled? Even some compromise solution — the tax incentives stay in place, but only for economically distressed localities (which was how the law was originally written) — would still add demands to the power grid.

This seems a classic case of two sides talking past each other. We will not resolve that today.

The energy issues associated with data centers seem well understood — they may be complex, but everyone has at least a baseline understanding that data centers require a lot of energy. We also all understand that those energy requirements are driving the construction of energy projects (often in rural areas where they aren’t always welcomed) and transmission lines (which nobody ever wants nearby).

What seems less understood — especially by those in metro areas — is the economic impact of data centers in a rural community. At the Senate Finance meeting, Deeds and Lucas asked how many data centers would be going into Berry Hill to hit that 2,500-job target — they estimated as many as 40, although no one has ever said. The legislators’ math was based on the widespread belief that data centers don’t produce many jobs, relative to their size. That was true at one time, Sickles said, although data centers that deal with artificial intelligence require more workers, perhaps up to 300 or so. (This is the flip side of the two-sided coin of how AI will impact the workplace: It will eliminate some jobs but will create others, just as other technological innovations that have come before it. We really shouldn’t talk about one without talking about the other.)

Whether 50 jobs for a single, traditional data center or 300 for a larger, more AI-focused complex, those numbers are still relatively small in Northern Virginia. They are not in a rural community. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership’s job announcement database says that since 1990, the largest jobs announcement in Greensville County was 250 jobs — and that was back in 1995. Some Virginia legislators weren’t even born when that happened.

Since the Compass projects never got to fruition, we don’t know what they would have paid, but a Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission study in 2024 said that data center jobs in Virginia earn about $100,000 a year. The median household income in Greensville County is $56,759; in Emporia, it’s $49,375.

And then there is the tax revenue that a data center would generate. Where some see data centers as a problem industry that drives up energy consumption, localities often see them as solutions for revenue generation. Natalie Slate, economic development director for Greensville County, listed multiple needs her county faces: “new schools, courthouse renovations, upgraded equipment for first responders, and the replacement of aging water and sewer infrastructure. Without the tax revenue generated by data centers, the community would likely be forced to increase taxes on residents who are already facing substantial economic hardship to fund these essential projects.”

Probably every locality in the state could cite similar needs; what makes the difference in rural communities is their small size — and small base of taxable resources — so the scale is a lot different. “For a community such as Sussex County that has a budget of $30 to $35 million — one data center in Sussex would double their revenue,” Boswell said. “So it really is transformative. …You’re going to shut the gate and not let them compete for the things that all these rich counties have?”

Spanberger told Cardinal that she’s open to discussion about whether the tax abatements should continue past their expiration date in 2035, but that ending them early would have repercussions beyond the immediate tax question. “It’s not just data centers. It’s advanced manufacturing,” she said. “There are companies within the supply chain for data centers that are looking to invest in Virginia” — but now don’t know if they should.

Data center critics rightly focus on the energy demands. 

However, these are some of the questions that some rural localities would like legislators to think about as they ponder the future of data center taxation.

We have more political news and analysis every Friday afternoon in West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter:

The post Cabinet secretary: Southside county loses two economic development prospects due to uncertainty over data center taxes appeared first on Cardinal News.

Greensville County, a rural county along the state line where Interstate 95 passes into North Carolina, has had more than its share of hard luck.

For a long time, it was known mostly as the place where criminals went to die: Until Virginia abolished the death penalty, those executions were carried out at the Greensville Correctional Center.

Greensville sits in Virginia’s timber industry belt. The Georgia-Pacific paper company once had a large presence here, which declined piece by piece until last year, when the plywood mill in Emporia shut down altogether. The empty building might have been a candidate for a successor company — except that it burned over the winter.

In the most recent unemployment reports, Greensville County has one of the highest jobless rates in Virginia: 6.6%, more than double the state average of 3.2%. Emporia, the independent city that sits within Greensville, has the state’s highest unemployment rate: 8.8%.

Now there’s more bad news — and bad luck — for Greensville County: State Secretary of Finance Mark Sickles says that a multinational company that would have brought jobs paying significantly more than the median household income in Greensville has scratched the county off its list.

Why? Because of uncertainty about Virginia’s future tax policy.

The catch: We’re talking here about data centers.

On Tuesday, Sickles appeared before the Senate Finance Committee to deliver a periodic update on state finances. He said that Virginia had lost 41,900 jobs this fiscal year, although state revenues remain $850 million ahead of what’s forecast. He warned that inflation is rising and consumer confidence is falling. He talked about how Gov. Abigail Spanberger has ordered a revised revenue forecast so the state could get a better handle on an uncertain economy.

All that made news, as it should have.

There was one other thing he said that did not get so much attention: Sickles said that due to questions over whether Virginia will continue its tax abatements for data centers, Compass Datacenters, a Texas-based company, had halted its search for two data center sites in Greensville County and/or Emporia.

This came in the context of a legislative stalemate over how data centers should be taxed. Virginia has a tax break for data centers that runs through 2035. Senate Finance Committee Chair Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, has insisted that this incentive be eliminated eight years early, meaning next year. House budget negotiators — led by House Appropriations chair Luke Torian, D-Prince William County — have likewise insisted that Virginia should keep its word and continue the incentive through the 2035 date Virginia has pledged, lest the state send an unwelcome signal to other business sectors that Virginia can’t be trusted.

The result is that the General Assembly did not produce a budget by the time it adjourned in early March. Here it is late May, and there have still been no real budget negotiations, raising the specter that Virginia won’t have a budget in time for the start of the new fiscal year on July 1. Lucas said Wednesday we would, but she also held fast to her position that this tax break needs to go.

These are easy positions for some legislators — and many activists — to take. After all, the demand for energy is one of the most pressing issues in the state, and the rapid growth of data centers is behind that — and that rapid growth is aided by the state’s tax incentives. If we did away with those, we’d slow down data center growth and maybe be in a better position to deal with the energy issues. Now come the harder complications.

The biggest of those has been known for some time, since the last time Sickles briefed the Senate Finance Committee. The Stack data center company is planning a major development at the Southern Virginia Megasite in Pittsylvania County — major as in 2,500 jobs over 30 years. Sickles warned before that the development depended on the tax abatement remaining in place. He repeated that warning this week. “They’ve said they’re not going to go forward without this tax abatement,” Sickles said. (This is also part of the performance agreement between the local industrial authority and the company.)

Lucas and state Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, pushed back against Sickles’ contention that 2,500 jobs in Southside might be at risk. They didn’t dispute that those jobs may, indeed, not happen if the state changes the rules, but they pointed out that the 2,500 jobs have to be weighed against other considerations — such as how much energy would have to be produced to service the development. If that figure is known, it hasn’t been publicly disclosed, not by Stack and not by Appalachian Power, which would be the utility providing the power. In any case, the point Deeds and Lucas are making is that those jobs wouldn’t be free — as a policy matter, the state has to decide whether the costs of providing power and other infrastructure outweigh the benefits. That’s hard math for those in Pittsylvania County who just see 2,500 jobs with promised salaries of $80,500; this in a county where employment has fallen by 16.9% over the past quarter-century and where the median household income is $54,115. Pittsylvania is also at the epicenter of solar energy growth in Virginia. It’s got more megawatts of solar panels than all but two other counties, according to the Virginia Solar Database, The once-green farmland around the Climax neighborhood of the county now glistens black with solar panels; county leaders are right to think that they’ve done their part to supply the state with power with few jobs to show for it, so why can’t they now take advantage of some of that power and cash in with what would be the biggest jobs announcement in that part of the state for generations?

Then Sickles noted that a different data center company was “looking at sites in southern Virginia — in Greensville, the Emporia area — and they quit that.” He said this involved a search to locate two data centers for Compass Datacenters. 

“That hurts Greensville County,” Gov. Abigail Spanberger said during an interview Thursday. “That hurts local revenues. That hurts local services.”

Compass did not respond to inquiries about the size of the intended projects; economic development officials say that discussions weren’t far enough along to determine a specific size. However, one thing is clear: Many officials in that part of Virginia aren’t very happy. While other — often more affluent — parts of Virginia now recoil from data centers, these rural counties in one of the most economically distressed parts of Virginia see an opportunity being taken away from them by legislators who want to shut down the tax incentives.

Keith Boswell is president of Virginia Gateway Region, the economic development group that covers a swath of eastern Southside, from Colonial Heights and Petersburg down to Emporia and Greensville County. “You’re talking down in my neck of the woods, a lot of communities are struggling to get by,” he said in an interview. These communities see a data center not as a problem to be regulated or refused but an opportunity to be secured. “That is something all nine communities in the Gateway Region have said: ‘If you can go out and bring us a data center, we want it.’”

For years, that seemed an impossible goal. No technology companies were interested in a rural part of the state. Now, as Northern Virginia essentially fills up with data centers, rural communities are starting to see more interest from data centers. “I’ve got five significant data center projects” that are interested in the Virginia Gateway Region, Boswell said. “Some are more significant than others but all of them are big, big data centers.” If changes to state tax law cause data center companies to go to other states, he said, “you’re talking about taking away an opportunity that other communities have had.” Many of the localities in the Virginia Gateway Region are also part of that solar growth zone; one of them, Brunswick County, has more solar megawatts than any other part of the state. Another, Surry County, is home to a nuclear plant, something that other communities might not want to have anything to do with. These counties are now starting to see themselves as a power-producing region and wonder why they can’t also tap into some of that power for job growth.

Del. Otto Wachsmann Jr., R-Sussex County and a legislator whose district includes much of the Virginia Gateway Region, sees a double standard: “It is apparent the rest of the state wants to push solar on our farm and forested lands to power Northern Virginia’s data centers while taking that same prospect off the table for our rural localities to consider.”

This illustrates the challenges that state legislators face in governing such a diverse state. Some localities feel they have more than enough data centers and might be happy to never see another; some don’t have any but want some. However, the energy needs that data centers have touch everyone, so the rural counties that are clamoring for data centers would be adding to the problem. It may not be a problem they created, but it’s one that they could exacerbate by insisting on their share of data center riches. When Boswell touts the prospect of landing “big, big data centers,” some hear “big, big energy demands.” Data center skeptics see an unsustainable demand for energy that needs to be restrained; some rural localities see the state’s “haves” telling the “have-nots” that they’re not allowed to pursue the same economic opportunities they have. How can these things be reconciled? Even some compromise solution — the tax incentives stay in place, but only for economically distressed localities (which was how the law was originally written) — would still add demands to the power grid.

This seems a classic case of two sides talking past each other. We will not resolve that today.

The energy issues associated with data centers seem well understood — they may be complex, but everyone has at least a baseline understanding that data centers require a lot of energy. We also all understand that those energy requirements are driving the construction of energy projects (often in rural areas where they aren’t always welcomed) and transmission lines (which nobody ever wants nearby).

What seems less understood — especially by those in metro areas — is the economic impact of data centers in a rural community. At the Senate Finance meeting, Deeds and Lucas asked how many data centers would be going into Berry Hill to hit that 2,500-job target — they estimated as many as 40, although no one has ever said. The legislators’ math was based on the widespread belief that data centers don’t produce many jobs, relative to their size. That was true at one time, Sickles said, although data centers that deal with artificial intelligence require more workers, perhaps up to 300 or so. (This is the flip side of the two-sided coin of how AI will impact the workplace: It will eliminate some jobs but will create others, just as other technological innovations that have come before it. We really shouldn’t talk about one without talking about the other.)

Whether 50 jobs for a single, traditional data center or 300 for a larger, more AI-focused complex, those numbers are still relatively small in Northern Virginia. They are not in a rural community. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership’s job announcement database says that since 1990, the largest jobs announcement in Greensville County was 250 jobs — and that was back in 1995. Some Virginia legislators weren’t even born when that happened.

Since the Compass projects never got to fruition, we don’t know what they would have paid, but a Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission study in 2024 said that data center jobs in Virginia earn about $100,000 a year. The median household income in Greensville County is $56,759; in Emporia, it’s $49,375.

And then there is the tax revenue that a data center would generate. Where some see data centers as a problem industry that drives up energy consumption, localities often see them as solutions for revenue generation. Natalie Slate, economic development director for Greensville County, listed multiple needs her county faces: “new schools, courthouse renovations, upgraded equipment for first responders, and the replacement of aging water and sewer infrastructure. Without the tax revenue generated by data centers, the community would likely be forced to increase taxes on residents who are already facing substantial economic hardship to fund these essential projects.”

Probably every locality in the state could cite similar needs; what makes the difference in rural communities is their small size — and small base of taxable resources — so the scale is a lot different. “For a community such as Sussex County that has a budget of $30 to $35 million — one data center in Sussex would double their revenue,” Boswell said. “So it really is transformative. …You’re going to shut the gate and not let them compete for the things that all these rich counties have?”

Spanberger told Cardinal that she’s open to discussion about whether the tax abatements should continue past their expiration date in 2035, but that ending them early would have repercussions beyond the immediate tax question. “It’s not just data centers. It’s advanced manufacturing,” she said. “There are companies within the supply chain for data centers that are looking to invest in Virginia” — but now don’t know if they should.

Data center critics rightly focus on the energy demands. 

However, these are some of the questions that some rural localities would like legislators to think about as they ponder the future of data center taxation.

We have more political news and analysis every Friday afternoon in West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter:

The post Cabinet secretary: Southside county loses two economic development prospects due to uncertainty over data center taxes appeared first on Cardinal News.