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Today former City Treasurer Becky Neal plead guilty to misuse of public funds. She’ll serve two years probation, and pay $950 in restitution and fines (not including legal fees). As part of the agreement reached with the prosecutors, the CA is dropping 19 other charges against her.

Dave Briggman and Myron Rhodes have posted Fitzwater - Neal lawsuit documents on republitarian.com, which chronicle the series of events leading up to the investigation of the treasurer’s office, as well as Cynthia Fitzwater’s role as whistleblower, and her demotion by Becky Neal which followed.

I suppose this is a continuation of the comments from last summer’s post about dangerous dogs. There’s a story in the News Virginian about a boy that was mauled by his neighbor’s dog. The attorney in the story says that under Virginia law, every dog gets one free attack, and adds that “Virginia one of [...]

The partial closure of Court Square for Mark Warner’s May 6 visit came up at City Council on Tuesday (and is covered in the DNR today). It seemed like a touchy subject for members of council. As I recall, when George Allen was on the courthouse steps for the marriage amendment rally, Court Square was [...]

The petition to remove Treasurer Becky Neal from office has been filed, and is currently being verified by the city voter registrar. But I’m trying to figure out if members of General Assembly tried to get involved in the process yesterday, by way of an amended bill.

Jokes aside, the DNR reports that One Court Square could possibly have occupants soon: county probation officers and magistrates. Presumably there aren’t enough of those downtown.
The city-owned building has been empty since 2004.

In the wake of the ICE arrests, WMRA’s Martha Woodroof interviewed an unauthorized Guatemalan immigrant who used to work at the Cargill plant in Dayton. She asks him about working with false papers.
Transcript and interview here.

H’burg news has 73 posts in the archives with the immigration tag; clearly, it’s a hot topic both locally and state-wide. Along those lines, the American Sociological Association (ASA) issued a news release: “Immigration ‘Hot Spots’ and Violent Crime Inversely Linked.”

This article is posted in today’s issue of the Daily News Record.
This is the snopes link that shows that this story is not very accurate.
This was brought to my attention by someone else, who also left the link in the comments on the article, so I can’t take credit for it. However, it is disturbing [...]

I wouldn’t normally post about state budget issues, but I noticed there wasn’t anything on DNR’s website about it, so…
While congress squabbles over the federal budget, the General Assembly is trying to settle the state budget in Richmond. They’ve already gone into overtime twice because of it, so you know all the legislators are itching [...]

Just to clarify: From what information I was able to gather yesterday and today, there were no arrests made at the Cargill plant in Dayton. However, there were several arrests made in Harrisonburg (the DNR’s DeLea says four, this list shows three local indictees), which were connected to the sale and distribution of identification documents. [...]

In December, Bill Helsley was the only one of several local attorneys seeking the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Bar Association (HRBA) endorsement for circuit court judge to receive the necessary two-thirds majority of votes from his colleagues. Thomas Wilson was among those that did not receive two-thirds of that vote. Yet last week, as reported in the DNR, [...]

There’s a story in USA Today that mentions Gemeinschaft. The story was prompted by a report from the Eisenhower Foundation, a nonprofit group that analyzes and advocates programs for what they describe as “inner city, the truly disadvantaged, children, youth and families.”

The DNR suggests this morning that indicted Treasurer Becky Neal beat the petitioners to the punch and resign. The questions it raises are should she, will she, and is anyone out there agreeing with a DNR editorial for the first time ever?