Making the grade
Earlier this month Governor Terry McAuliffe signed an executive action that will significantly cut greenhouse gas emissions from state fossil fuel power plants. Executive Directive 11 instructs the Department of Environmental Quality to establish regulations to cap carbon emissions. Only a handful of states have attempted this—it’s kind of a big deal.
Mike Tidwell, the executive director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, says the directive “is precisely what environmental advocates have been asking the governor to do for more than two years now. With President Trump dismantling climate policies nationally, it’s reassuring that Governor McAuliffe has at last responded in a powerful way.”
Noting the governor’s “decidedly mixed environmental legacy” in a Washington Post op-ed May 21, Tidwell also said this new action will improve the failing report card grade that CCAN assigned to McAuliffe last year.
Here’s how the environmental cheerleaders say he’s doing so far:
D-lister
Keeping fossil fuels in the ground: D
Cleaning up a toxic legacy of coal ash: F
Moving Virginia to a new clean energy economy: C+
Fighting sea level rise and flooding impacts: B
Final grade: D+
From racetrack to subdivision?
Court documents in the neighbors’ suit against Foxfield Racing Association showed plans to split the primo Garth Road property into 17 lots called Hermit’s Thrush, and another plan that would develop some of the 184-acre property and keep the track, according to Charlottesville Tomorrow.
5th District candidate
Attorney/Charlottesvillian Andrew Sneathern got a jump on the 2018 congressional race and announced a run May 30 for the Democratic nomination, presumably to challenge Tom Garrett.
Yancey Elementary nevermore
The Albemarle School Board voted 5-2 May 25 to close the Esmont school, which has staved off closure for years, at the end of the current school year on June 9, citing dwindling enrollment—118 currently, 108 projected for next year—low test scores and a loss of $395,000 in federal grants. Students will attend Red Hill or Scottsville elementaries.
“White silence is racist violence.”—The anonymous Cville Solidarity in a May 24 press release on resisting violent white supremacism in Charlottesville
HR downsizing
UVA plans to merge its academic and medical human resources departments, which could slice 40 jobs. Employees claim they’ve been kept in the dark; UVA says they’ll be offered jobs, the Daily Progress reports.
Wenners and losers
Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine, a biography about the mag’s founder, will hit bookstore shelves this October. Author and journalist Joe Hagan says it will address the now debunked UVA sexual assault story, “A Rape on Campus,” which resulted in a major lawsuit and retraction.