Eleven-year-old Powhatan County resident Monica Plumb is the Kid of the Year. That’s according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which honored Monica last week at the Humane Awards Luncheon in New York City. Plumb was awarded the “Tommy Monahan” Kid of the Year Award for developing a Web site with the help of her father to collect online donations to buy oxygen pet masks for fire departments.

There will be no tricks, treats or Halloween parties this year for many of Virginia’s convicted sex criminals. Officers with the Virginia Department of Corrections and the Virginia State Police are teaming up again to make sure registered sex offenders who are under state supervision won’t cause any harm to young ghouls and goblins.

Five Virginia Department of Corrections officers have been charged with animal cruelty involving the fondling of a K-9 dog and videotaping the two incidents. All five officers were training at the Academy for Staff Development in Goochland County to become K-9 handlers. They were charged across the James River in Powhatan County where the kennel is located, at the Powhatan Correctional Center.

Eight local governments in the Richmond area will have a new way to talk to one another in an emergency, with no telephone wires attached. A $1.73 million grant provided by the U.S. Homeland Security Department will allow emergency officials to complete a regional microwave system that allows them to share critical information in a natural or man-made disaster.

Marsell C. Bustos has been appointed the District 2 representative on the Powhatan County Board of Supervisors. Bustos, 50, replaces Charlie Green, who died Oct. 2 of complications from pneumonia. He will serve at least until a special election can be held in November 2010. The unanimous appointment was made last night by the board after a handful of the nearly 150 residents in attendance let supervisors know they didn’t agree with the way the matter was handled.

What: The meeting will include a public hearing on the appointment of Marsell Bustos as District 2 supervisor
  When: 7 p.m. tonight
  Where: Powhatan High School, 1800 Judes Ferry Road

The Powhatan County Board of Supervisors is expected tonight to appoint Marsell Bustos as District 2 supervisor, replacing Charlie Green, who died Oct. 2. While the board didn’t break any laws by picking a replacement behind closed doors, the lack of public input in the process has some residents upset. After a work session last Wednesday, the board went into closed session to discuss a replacement for Green. Members came to consensus on Bustos, the runner-up in the three-way race for the District 2 seat in the 2007 election, said Board Chairman Robert R. Cosby. Bustos serves as chairman of the Powhatan Democratic Party, a role he says he would relinquish if appointed to the Board of Supervisors.

Central Virginia has seen a slight increase in homicides so far this year, with higher numbers in Richmond and Petersburg offsetting improved numbers elsewhere. For the first nine months of the year, the region had 59 homicides, compared with 55 at the same time last year. The biggest shift has been in Richmond, where city police recorded seven more homicides as of Sept. 30 than a year earlier. Richmond’s nine-month count of 34 exceeds the total of 32 homicides for all of 2008.

Wal-Mart has filed for the rezoning of a 53-acre parcel of land in eastern Powhatan County, making official their intention to build there. The retailer, which submitted the application to the county Thursday afternoon, hopes to open a 170,000-square-foot store north of U.S. 60 just west of state Route 675. If Wal-Mart gets the county’s blessing, doors could open by 2011.

Charles Dallas Green Sr., vice chairman of the Powhatan County Board of Supervisors, died Friday morning in a Richmond hospital. He was 63. He had been hospitalized with pneumonia. Mr. Green, who represented District 2 in southeastern Powhatan, worked for the Virginia Department of Military Affairs as superintendent of roads and grounds at Fort Pickett in Blackstone, where he managed more than 43,000 acres and 270 miles of roads and trails.

Sometimes regionalism starts at Starbucks. Every other Monday, Chesterfield County’s Midlothian District Supervisor Daniel A. Gecker and Richmond City Council President and 4th District representative Kathy C. Graziano meet for coffee and conversation in South Richmond. They talk about issues of mutual interest in their neighboring localities and districts, regional initiatives and their children.

120 had no critical violations during inspections conducted during the 2008-09 school year; and
93 had two or fewer total
critical violations for the year
Here are some examples of critical violations inspectors found at area schools. These
violations were corrected:
Oct. 30, 2008: Employees were observed handling ready-to-eat food with bare hands at

A day after President Barack Obama’s televised remarks to students, area school officials yesterday were more supportive of his speech. That was a contrast from the days leading up to Obama’s address, when a national fervor led school districts nationwide—and all but one of the largest districts in central Virginia—either to ban the broadcast or restrict access to it.

When President Barack Obama urges America’s students today to “write your own destiny” by working hard in school, thousands of students in the Richmond area won’t be watching. Yesterday, the debate over Obama’s speech continued during Labor Day cookouts and final outings to the park before classes start. Schools in the counties of Chesterfield, Hanover and Powhatan and the cities of Colonial Heights and Petersburg do not plan to show the speech today. Henrico County is requiring teachers to get permission from every parent and preview the speech if they want to show it today.

What? Parents are protesting an American president’s message that their children study hard and stay in school? Some school systems, cowed by grumbling parents or perhaps politically simpatico, are refusing to broadcast President Barack Obama’s back-to-school address? A pro-education message by our president is being suppressed by educators. Goals that should be universally embraced are being treated as if they emerged from “The Manchurian Candidate.“