Youngkin shows political savvy in town hall

JIM RIDOLPHI

Contributing Columnist

It took only minutes for one thing to become glaringly apparent when Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin appeared on a CNN town hall focused on education recently. After a few extended answers to questions provided by host Jake Tapper as well as audience members, no one could argue that Youngkin is a consummate politician, a master of providing seemingly well-informed answers that contain few details or specifics.

Youngkin was well polished, informed and comfortable as he approached each topic with a confidence in his responses. But finding real answers or even clear political stances on many of these issues was elusive at the presentation.

When asked about an inherent bias toward African American teachers in the Commonwealth, Youngkin admitted that racism does exist and acknowledged the importance of Virginia students to learn both the good and bad of the state’s history; but, he defended his recent decision to review an AP Black History course recently banned in Florida by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The governor said his request

Letter To The Editor

Citizens having to pay for county leaders’ mistakes

Dear Editor, The Powhatan 2024 Budget requires transparency and citizen restitution for 2022 costs from mismanagement/possible illegal action for which the citizens received NO benefit. These costs include: negating of the County Pay and Classification Plan; the troubled “Keystone” contract; actions/inflated severance pay of the former County Administrator, detailed in the September 2022 County Attorney’s report, and August- October, 2022 BOS Meetings. The citizens received NO benefit from these, which could be 3% of the proposed budget for all services (except schools).

The 2024 Budget should identify costs to correct the former county administrator/BOS actions from mismanagement/ possible violations of law including a new, legally defensible for that review was standard operating procedure and was required by his first executive order that mandated reviews of any courses deemed detrimental to students.

He also defended his efforts to disallow the teaching of Critical Race Theory in Virginia classrooms. When the complicated question of LGBTQ issues was raised by an audience member, Youngkin again repeated a familiar response that parents should have an active voice in how their kids are educated, and how each and every one of those parents should be heard.

He noted the need for more gender neutral bathrooms in schools, his full support of a ban that prohibits gender neutral choice sports opportunities and did not offer any wiggle room regarding his policies.

Even with the calculated answers to audience questions, Youngkin proved he’s ready for primetime and believes the message that vaulted him to the governor’s office will play favorably on a national level.

Throughout the broadcast, Youngkin affirmed his commitment to parents and their role in their children’s education.

The governor pointed to the

Class and Compensation contract; staff costs due to Keystone contract inadequacies; extreme severance pay to the former county administrator.

The proposed budget attempted to “hide” these expenses as “Initiatives” such as “C&C Plan Investment” and “County Administrator Restructuring.” Do not insult the citizens of Powhatan by representing these failures as initiatives.

The budget is based on +16% increase (+26% over 2022) in property tax revenue from assessments (property value inflation, not major new building). This inflation benefit to county revenue should not be used to hide costs the citizens should not have incurred.

Of the $119.6 million proposed budget, $60M is school specific and $8.4M debt service, leaving about $51.2M budget for all other citizen services.

Against $51.2M, the proposal includes $1.2M for C&C “Initiative” (about 2.3%); hides the cost of the former county adminis- recent pandemic and its effect on students as they substituted at-home learning for the traditional level, opening parents eyes to exactly what was being taught in Virginia schools.

“Children belong to parents,” Youngkin said. “Not to the state, not to schools, not to bureaucrats, but to parents.” trator severance package (about $160K, or about 0.3%); hides the costs of replacing the county administrator and the county attorney resignation/reinstatement, estimated at $100K, or 0.2%). These (not counting Keystone costs) equal about 2.8 % ($1.4M) of the $51.2M budget.

Some pointed to the governor’s appearance as a sort of kickoff for his presidential run, but national polls have failed to recognize Youngkin’s legitimacy as a viable candidate.

Still, there’s no doubt that Youngkin knows how to play the political game, even if some responses seemed too perfect and simplified to address controversial education issues.

Youngkin repeatedly said parents of students in Virginia should take the lead on educational policy.

“Parents deserve not only to be at the table, but they deserve to have the head seat at the table,” the governor said.

It’s a message that appealed to the majority of Virginia voters who trusted Youngkin to put parents back in the classrooms. It’s yet to be determined if those policies could propel Youngkin to a seat on the national political state.

The proposed 2 cent reduction in the tax rate (main source of county revenue) does not even cover these wastes! It is estimated the above and “Keystone” failures would exceed revenue from 3 cents of the tax rate ($1.68M).

The 2024 Budget needs: A) a transparent summary of costs incurred by the citizens from which they received no benefit; and B) in addition to any reduction in the tax rate, a REBATE TO THE CITIZENS of at least 2 cents of the rate ( $560K x 2= $1.120M). No increases (except public health or safety) should be introduced until the citizens receive a rebate for prior year mismanagement.

Tom Gitchel, Powhatan

helped her put on a fantastic event designed to arm families with a good deal of information about what is available to them in times of need.

I get it; this is not the glamorous fun of a STEM Expo; it’s tables filled with information (and some freebies). People have work, extracurricular activities, and other commitments.

So I am not going to harp on the open house and this missed opportunity. Instead, I wanted to point out that as amazing as it was to have all of those resources together in one room for the ease and convenience of busy parents, missing the fair doesn’t mean people missed out on a chance to find help when they need it.

Because the office that brought

Assembly

From A1 he will be running again to represent Powhatan in the redrawn 72nd District, which now sees Powhatan joining Amelia and Nottoway counties and several precincts in northwestern Chesterfield County in its representation in the House of Delegates.

With the Virginia Senate, Powhatan will remain in District 10, but it is going to be getting some new additions. Before redistricting, District 10 was comprised of all of Powhatan and parts of Chesterfield County and Richmond City. But on the new State Senate map, Powhatan is the only original county on that list still in District 10. It will now be joined by all of Cumberland, Amelia, Goochland, Appomattox, Buckingham and Fluvanna counties and portions of Louisa, Hanover and Prince Edward counties.

“I think we are going to see the most seismic changes in next year as we launch 2024 – more changes that we have ever seen in recent memory in our Virginia legislature. I know in the Senate alone, we have about 12 to 13 incumbents who will not be returning out of 40 and a massive shift in senior leadership,” said Hashmi said, who will no longer be eligible to represent Powhatan.

Ware agreed there is “a lot of institutional knowledge and understanding that will be going out the door in both chambers.”

„ Workforce development: Hashmi praised the bipartisan effort in both chambers and across multiple agencies to bring forth a comprehensive legislation that addresses severe needs of workforce development in Virginia. The Workforce development bill creates the Department of Workforce Development and Advancement to administer workforce development programs. It consolidates statewide workforce program evaluation and data sharing under the department and provides protections against improper disclosure of data. The bill provides for the Virginia Board of Workforce Development to conduct an independent evaluation of the operations and program objectives of the department on a biennial basis with the first report due on Dec. 1, 2025. The bill also transfers administration of apprenticeship programs from the Department of Labor and Industry to the new department; directs the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia to collaborate with the department to grow and expand the Innovative Internship Fund and Program; and directs the Secretary of Labor to conduct a comprehensive review of the

WE WANT TO PUBLISH YOUR ISSUE-DRIVEN LETTERS all of those people together – the Parent Resource Center – is still very much available and there to help Powhatan families. People may still contact Becky Boswell, coordinator of the PCPS Parent Resource Center, at 804-5985700 ext. 147 or prc@powhatan. k12.va.us, to ask questions.

They can still visit the center’s website, http://www.powhatan. k12.va.us/groups/66646/instruction/parent_resource_center, to find links to all of those groups and more at any time, day or night.

In other words, the connections are still there when you need them.

Laura McFarland may be reached at Lmcfarland@powhatantoday.com.

Commonwealth’s workforce development programs and make recommendations to address a wide range of subjects relating to improving the effectiveness and efficiency of such programs.

“It was just a myriad of different offices and government facilities trying to move us forward in workforce development,” said Hashmi, adding the legislation has the “potential to be truly transformative.”

„ Landfills: Both Ware and Hashmi worked on legislation designed to improve protections of property owners living near proposed landfills, influenced by the project currently proposed in Cumberland County near the Powhatan County border. Ware championed a bill again this year that sought to prevent a landfill within a mile of any private well, which is a protection afforded to municipal water. He added to the bill an attempt to bring back Virginia’s standard of having a double liner for added protections with mega-landfills. The bill did not make it out of committee.

„ Voter identification: Ware was chief patron on a bill that would require a form of photo ID when voting. He said the practice was successful for a number of years before it was taken out of Virginia Code. He also argued that the majority of states have some sort of voter identification requirements. The bill passed in the house but failed in the Senate.

„ U.S. Naturalization Test:

At the request of attorney general Jason Miyares, his former legislative assistant, Ware was patron of a bill that would have made it a requirement for students to take and correctly answer at least 70% of the questions on the civics portion of the U.S. Naturalization Test in order to graduate high school with a standard or advanced studies diploma. Students could take it any time during high school and as many times as needed to pass. He said he questioned the need to add additional testing for students but felt the knowledge the test checks for is important for people to know. The bill passed in the House but failed in the Senate.

„ Dominion Energy: A longtime effort on Ware’s part was the Virginia Electric Utility Regulation Act, which did pass the General Assembly with unanimous votes in both houses. It requires that Dominion Resources or any large monopoly utility, be regulated by the State Corporation Commission to ensure that Dominion’s charges represent a fair rate of return on their actual costs and profits. It was an effort to make sure the company, which Ware acknowledge is an essential Virginia-based company, should not be able to “game the system.”

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Powhatan today welcomes your Letters to the editor on topics of concern to you and the community. Letters, which should be no longer than 400 words, must include the name, address and telephone number of the author. the deadline is noon thethursday before publication, but letters may be held until the following week upon the editor’s discretion. the publisher or editor of Powhatan today reserves the right to edit or withhold from publication any letter for any reason whatsoever. once received, all letters become the possession of Powhatan today. Letters reflect the opinion of the author, not necessarily that of Powhatan today or its staff.

Indians respond to opening loss with blowout over Patriots

ROBBY FLETCHER

Editor

Sports

In their first week of regular season games, the Powhatan softball team took on the Manchester Lancers and Patrick Henry Patriots to start their season.

A young squad looking to replace a handful of influential seniors from last year, the Indians are still very much finding their footing at the beginning of the new season, but there were plenty of reasons for optimism after the early two-game sample.

The Indians battled hard at home against the Lancers on March 14, but a five-run fifth inning gave the traveling Lancers a 7-0 advantage that looked like the fatal blow. The Indians didn’t let that get them down, fighting back to score three runs in the bottom of the seventh, though that admirable effort wasn’t enough for the uphill climb of a seven-run deficit.

Two days later, the Indians were back at it with their second home game of the week against the Patriots. This time, it was the Indians who jumped out to the big lead.

After a 1-1 first inning that saw junior Madalyn Johnson nail an RBI single that sent Mazie Harmon home, a scoreless second inning was a small victory for the Patriots before the Indians started cracking the bat consistently and sending teammates home one after the other.

The third inning was a forceful showing from Powhatan, led off by an Ava Harper single that quickly led to a run on the next at-bat when Johnson’s grounder led to a costly Patriots error that got her on third base and Harper to home.

The next batter was Riley Baldwin, whose ground ball shot also led to a defensive error and scored in Johnson, got her to second base and gave Powhatan even more momentum. After Kendra Hogston-Royall’s pop fly single sent Baldwin home, the damage done was a 4-1 Indians lead entering the fourth inning.

The offensive success translated to the defense as well, with Johnson quickly striking out three consecutive batters at the top of the fourth to put Powhatan back on the offensive, where they scored two more runs on an Addison Elliott RBI single and a Baldwin RBI double.

In the sixth inning, Johnson recorded her 12th and final strikeout of the night while Harmon caught an out in foul territory from her position at catcher and MacKenzie Flora caught one down center field to give Powhatan another quick stop that held Patrick Henry scoreless.

What happened next allowed the Indians to go home an inning early, as they ran off six runs to put them ahead by double digits, signaling the mercy rule to call the game before the seventh inning.

With pitcher Autumn Reed at pitcher, Powhatan’s first four batters reached base by a walk, or in freshman Cassidy Moser’s

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