On May 22, Newport’s mayor stunned the city when she announced her resignation just 75 days after taking office. At that evening’s city council meeting, Beth Barnes read aloud a letter alleging that she had been “intimidated and bullied [and] commanded not to do certain things” by fellow council members and the now-retired city manager, Laura Dolgin. 

Barnes was Newport’s first new mayor in 14 years and, to some, represented an injection of new energy and fresh ideas in a city still trying to recover from the EB-5 investment fraud scandal, which left an entire block gutted and dashed hopes of reviving the local economy through promised new development. 

Commonly referred to as “the hole,” the remnants of demolished buildings sit on Main Street at the very center of downtown Newport, fenced off and overgrown with trees. Finding resolution for what many residents consider an eyesore and a reminder of the city’s unfulfilled promise has remained a hot button political issue.

Frustrations have reached a high boil in recent years, with other previous abrupt resignations from the city council. At public meetings, accusations frequently fly between council members and exchanges with members of the public have become increasingly hostile. 

Pam Ladds, a Newport resident who regularly attends council meetings, said Barnes is not alone in feeling bullied. “All of us have experienced abuse from our city officials in the past, which consists of raised voices, temper tantrums, name calling, threats,” she said. 

But some former city officials point the finger elsewhere.

Paul Monette, who was Newport’s mayor from 2009 to 2022, puts the blame for the tone of meetings on some of the residents who attend. “These vocal people, you know, they’ve made it personal.” He added, “A huge, silent majority were concerned about the people who go to the meetings [who] they feel have become abusive under the guise of free speech and transparency.”

Julie Raboin, who served on the council from 2017 to 2019, attributed the hostilities to the former city manager. 

“It became apparent that [Dolgin] was not interested in public input,” Raboin said. “Once people started feeling that [they were] not being listened to, they got angry. And then that just became the status quo. People spoke louder and louder, trying to be heard.”

‘People will want to see you fail’

At the root of Barnes’ premature departure appears to be a fundamental disagreement over the role of the mayor. 

Sitting at her dining room table last week, Barnes spoke to VTDigger in her first in-depth interview since she resigned. 

One of four candidates for the post and the only woman, Barnes campaigned on a promise to “Reenergize Newport,” prioritizing engagement with the community, a solution for “the hole” and protections for Lake Memphremagog, which borders Newport. “We hadn’t had a mayor or a city council that was actually visible, actually out in the community,” said Barnes, who moved to Newport from California a decade ago. “And to me, that’s what being a mayor means.”

It was Barnes’ first time serving in public office, but she recalled feeling optimistic that with a little guidance her “enthusiasm and energy … would be able to win the day and change the town.” 

Barnes recalled eagerly jumping into her new role, attending a virtual training session hosted by the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, organizing community hikes and reaching out to mayors in neighboring cities. Ahead of her first council meeting as mayor, she studied videos of past council meetings to learn word-for-word how the former mayor had run them. (The mayor is a member of the city council, which also has a president.)

But almost immediately, Barnes began to encounter gestures of disapproval. 

In one of their first meetings, Dolgin, the city manager, said to her, “People will want to see you fail.” (Dolgin told VTDigger she had “wanted [Barnes] to brace herself emotionally, so that she would be prepared for people to give her feedback that was uncomfortable.”) 

When Dolgin and the council learned that Barnes had reached out to the various department heads to introduce herself, she said she was told she was acting outside the bounds of her role as mayor. 

“I was sent an email [by Laura Dolgin] telling me that I was forbidden to meet any department heads, that Ms. Dolgin would arrange a meeting with all of them with her present,” Barnes said. “But I was not to meet with any city employee one-on-one.”

The substance of the request, if not the tone, is understandable, one national advocate for the city manager form of government said. The city manager is supposed to be the conduit between the city council and staff, according to Jason Grant, director of advocacy at International City/County Management. 

“How [councils] engage that could be different” from one city to another, he said. “What you don’t want is any official contacting any official as they wish without agreement of the council.”

In another case, Barnes contacted Dolgin to get caught up on the status of “the hole.” 

“Her response to me was there’s no urgency on this. And I felt like there was an urgency. I was the new mayor. And I just wanted to be brought up to speed on what was happening,” Barnes said.

When Barnes arranged a meeting with Michael Goldberg, the court-appointed receiver charged with handling the funds from the EB-5 program, council members and the city manager again chastised her by email, she said. 

“The mayor cannot conduct city business without the council’s consent,” Dolgin wrote in an email obtained by VTDigger. “You are running out ahead of long-term projects that require sensitivity and I am concerned your rogue and unbridled interference will cause damage for the city.” 

“Stop diminishing our roles by overstepping yours,” council member Chris Vachon added in a subsequent email. “Get trained in your roles and responsibilities.” 

Barnes said she resigned before the scheduled meeting with Goldberg.

Council member Clark Curtis declined to speak with VTDigger for this story. Council members Vachon, Kevin Charboneau and John Wilson did not respond to voicemails or emails requesting comment.

The dynamic between the new mayor, the city manager and the rest of the city council came to a head in two executive sessions in May that Barnes says violated Vermont’s open meeting laws.

Executive sessions are meetings held without the public present. State law limits discussion during those sessions to predetermined advertised agenda items that meet specific exceptions to the requirement that public bodies conduct business in public. Barnes would not disclose what exactly was said, citing fear of legal repercussions. 

“I walked in and there was another physical agenda,” Barnes said. “I have it, but I cannot show it to you because it would be a violation. They crucified me. Every single step I had made in that two months was picked apart.”

Barnes said the executive sessions were directed by the city manager. “Laura led the charge. Always. And (the other council members) fell into lockstep.”

‘A shock to my system’

Dolgin was Newport’s city manager for almost eight years before retiring on June 2 and leaving her home in the neighboring town of Derby. She told VTDigger her retirement was unrelated to city politics. 

In a phone interview from Virginia, where Dolgin now lives, she described her interpretation of the charter. 

“Newport is a city manager form of government,” she said. “The mayor is mostly ceremonial and facilitates the meeting, sets the agenda. There’s a clause in the charter that says the mayor is ultimately responsible for the finances and that sort of thing — but that’s ceremonial because it’s the city manager’s responsibility.”

Still, city managers are not elected officials, but rather are appointed by the elected officials on the city council. In Newport, the manager may receive a salary of up to $105,000, according to a recent posting for Dolgin’s former job. The mayor receives an annual stipend of $2,000, while council members are paid $1,750. 

Dolgin declined to comment on Barnes’ allegations of bullying, only referring to them as “sensational.” She would not comment on the executive sessions, citing confidentiality and the concern that Barnes might be preparing a lawsuit. 

The state largely leaves municipalities like Newport to interpret and enforce charters for themselves. 

A 2014 guide produced by the Secretary of State’s Office acknowledged, “There are a number of situations in which two or more officials have potentially conflicting authority. This can cause confusion, particularly when the officials are not communicating well with one another.” 

Newport’s charter, which was last updated in 1966, is vague about how the mayor and the city manager should co-exist. 

It states that the city manager is the “administrative head of the municipal government under the direction and supervision of the Council,” while the mayor is the “Chief Executive Officer of the City.” There is notable overlap in the way the roles are described, but the city manager’s role is commonly considered administrative, while the council and mayor are responsible for directing policy. 

“The value of [a city manager form of government],” according to Grant of International City/County Management, “is that it forces dialogue.” Since the council must have a majority vote when making policy decisions, “no one individual should be able to dictate their will.” 

At that level, the city manager role is advisory. In theory, Grant said, “city managers actually have no power to drive decisions. City managers cannot vote. They can be [fired] at any time. The idea that the city manager is driving [decisions] assumes that the city council has decided that they have no power, which is false.” 

Monette, the former mayor, said he had worked well with Dolgin. “You go out and you talk to people. You promote the community. But I would never get involved with the day-to-day. That’s why you have a city manager to do that.”

Melissa Petterssen, who served on the council for four years, saw the matter in simple terms: “[Dolgin] was a strong personality. [Barnes] couldn’t handle that.”

But former council president Raboin described Dolgin as “a very controlling figure” and said council members faced enormous pressure to conform to the recommendations Dolgin made to them. 

In response to the allegations of bullying, Raboin defended members of the council, several of whom she had worked with, saying, “The pattern of communication had been in place for so long that I don’t think they realized the level of dysfunction that they were all participating in.”

Barnes admits she was unprepared for the way the city manager and the council interacted with each other and the public. “I know that Newport has always kind of had its own M.O.,” Barnes said. “I just had never been so close to it. And it was a little bit of a shock to my system.” 

‘An open slate’

Today, Newport is left without a mayor and without the city manager who played such an outsize role in the city’s politics for the past eight years. With the council recruiting applicants to fill the city manager position and a special mayoral election slated for August, the city is left in a state of uncertainty.

Monette expressed concern about the “very, very negative impact” Barnes’ resignation has had on the community. “I hear it kind of doesn’t make Newport look good around the state,” he said, adding that he thinks there is a “silent majority, who are very disappointed in [Barnes] with what happened. They think this is a step backwards.”

Others strongly disagree. They see the moment as full of promise. Newport resident Pam Ladds called it a “growth point,” adding, “What happened is shining a light on what needs to change. You can’t cover wounds up — they don’t heal.”

Barnes wants to see the city look forward and take advantage of the new engagement her resignation has prompted. 

“More people are coming to the city council meetings. Oh my gosh, it’s been standing room only. That never happened before,” said Barnes. “I don’t think it’s about me anymore. I think it’s about the people mobilizing in a really good, positive way.”

Others agree that the potential is there for the city to shake off old habits and enter a new, more cooperative phase. 

“There hasn’t been an opportunity like this in a decade where there’s such an open slate,” said Raboin. “This could be the start of a whole new era of positivity and growth and co-creation of the city that everybody says they want.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: A new mayor’s abrupt resignation sparks debate in Newport.

Mississippi politicians have long viewed being anti-abortion as a key to winning elections, working diligently for years to stretch the limits of the law and pass some of the nation’s most restrictive bans.

But based on a new Mississippi Today/Siena College poll, being anti-abortion may not be the key electoral issue that politicians – especially Republican politicians – have believed it to be.

A poll of Mississippians who say they will vote in the Aug. 8 Republican primary found that 45% support repealing the state’s “trigger law” that bans most abortions in the state. Another 44% of likely Republican voters oppose repealing the ban, and 11% said they were not sure.

Editor’s note: Poll methodology and crosstabs can be found at the bottom of this story. Click here to read more about our partnership with Siena College Research Institute.

Mississippi’s trigger law went into effect in 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade. That decision effectively meant that abortion was no longer a national right and that the issue could be decided by each state.

It was a Mississippi case that led to the overturning of Roe. After the Supreme Court decision, the Republican leadership of the state proudly proclaimed Mississippi to be solidly pro-life, with some saying it was the nation’s “safest state for the unborn.”

The poll results are especially notable since the respondents are those who say they intend to vote in Republican primary in August. Generally speaking, it is believed that Republican primary voters tend to be staunchly anti-abortion while Democratic voters support abortion rights.

But based on the new poll, abortion might not be any longer the hot-button social issue that Republicans use to attack Mississippi Democrats and link them to national Democrats.

That issue, according to the results of the poll, could become rights of transgender Americans. According to the poll, likely Republican primary voters by an overwhelming 70%-to-19% margin oppose “repealing the current ban on gender affirming healthcare for any trans person under 18 years of age.” The remaining 11% of the poll respondents were undecided.

Earlier this year during the 2023 legislative session, Republican leaders pushed through a bill banning gender affirming care for minors. The bill prohibits medical providers in Mississippi from providing the care and also appears to ban parents from seeking out-of-state care for their children, though it is unclear how that provision would be enforced.

In the 2023 session, Republican legislative leadership also attempted to take steps to ensure that laws in the state banning most abortions are not weakened.

The Legislature made an unsuccessful effort to revise the state’s ballot initiative process that was struck down in 2021 on a technicality by the state Supreme Court. The initiative process allows voters to gather signatures to bypass the Legislature and place issues on the ballot. The House leadership, led by Speaker Philip Gunn, wanted the new initiative process to ban efforts of placing abortion issues on the ballot. The Legislature ultimately was unable to pass a law restoring the initiative.

Of course, the one time that Mississippians voted on the issue of abortion under the old and now invalid initiative, they rejected the so-called “personhood amendment” by a 58% to 42% margin. The personhood proposal on the ballot in 2011 defined a person “to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the equivalent thereof.” Then-Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant said at the time a vote against personhood would be “a victory for Satan.”

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the national right to an abortion in 2022, six states have voted on abortion. In all of those states, the electorate voted — usually by large margins — to expand abortion rights. Some of those states, such as Kansas, Kentucky and Montana, are seen as conservative as Mississippi.

On other issues, likely Republican Party primary voters, according to the poll:

• Support eliminating the grocery tax 76% to 15%, with 9% undecided or not answering.
• Support eliminating the state personal income tax 71% to 18%, with 11% not sure.
• Support full funding of public education through the Mississippi Adequate Education Program 57% to 16%, with 26% having no opinion or not knowing.
• Support expanding Medicaid 52% to 35%, with 13% not sure.

The Mississippi Today/Siena College Research Institute poll of 646 registered voters was conducted June 4-7, 2023, and has an overall margin of error of +/- 4.8 percentage points. Siena has an ‘A’ rating in FiveThirtyEight’s analysis of pollsters.

Click here for complete methodology and crosstabs relevant to this story.

The post Poll: Mississippi Republican voters cool on abortion ban appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Commission Chair Brian Sirmans said the changes came at the request of the University System of Georgia and are intended to clarify language that had picked up unintended negative meanings over the years.

The Current is an inclusive nonprofit, non-partisan news organization providing in-depth watchdog journalism for Savannah and Coastal Georgia’s communities.

Late Thursday night, the Montana Secretary of State announced that lawmakers scattered across Montana had officially overridden two high-profile vetoes from Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte, confirming policies aimed at reforming the Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs. 

The governor in May had rejected bipartisan bills seeking to improve patient care and oversight at the troubled adult psychiatric facility, calling one policy “legally insufficient” and the other a risk of causing “irresponsible, inappropriate, inhumane” outcomes. The two-thirds vote of each chamber to uphold the laws, Senate Bill 4 and House Bill 29, signals the closing of one political chapter in the interbranch disagreement and the beginning of a long road toward systemic changes. 

Asked Friday to comment on the overrides and the executive branch’s plans for implementing the new laws, deputy communications director Brooke Stroyke said the governor’s concerns with the policies are “well-documented” and that Gianforte “trusts [the state health department] to implement the legislation as approved by the legislature.”

In a Friday email, health department spokesperson Jon Ebelt said the agency “won’t be providing comment at this time.” 

SB 4 and HB 29, would, respectively, require the health department to share patient abuse and neglect reports with the federally authorized watchdog group Disability Rights Montana and set the state on a path to ending the involuntary commitment of patients with Alzheimer’s, dementia and traumatic brain injuries. Each passed with near-unanimous bipartisan support.

But the policies were consistently opposed by the state health department, an arm of Gianforte’s executive branch. In an 11th-hour attempt to revise the bills shortly before lawmakers adjourned the session, the governor’s office said SB 4 risked compromising private patient information, a claim Disability Rights Montana and bill supporters denied. Regarding HB 29, the governor said the policy “either represents a deep misunderstanding of or a failure to acknowledge the fundamental concepts underpinning the need for involuntary commitments of individuals suffering from a serious mental illness.” Supporters countered that the bill takes necessary steps to place people with Alzheimer’s and dementia in clinically appropriate, community-based settings rather than the state hospital.

“It is federal law, good policy and the right thing to do to make sure people are cared for in the least restrictive, most appropriate setting,” HB 29’s sponsor, Rep. Jennifer Carlson, R-Manhattan said in a Friday statement. 

The governor’s veto of SB 4 was overridden by more than the required threshold in the House and Senate, with 72 representatives and 39 senators voting in support of the policy. HB 29 was upheld by a closer margin, with 67 representatives (the two-thirds threshold in that chamber) voting to override the veto, alongside 39 senators (four more than the requirement). 

Several more lawmakers opposed the policies in polling than when the bills were considered during the session. Roughly 30 Republicans and Democrats voted in alignment with the governor’s vetoes, shedding light on some of the tense political dynamics that have developed since lawmakers left Helena after sine die. 

As MTFP previously reported, the governor’s office had been leaning on lawmakers to oppose the override effort while strategically withholding approval of other bipartisan measures: an affordable childcare bill and a key part of the state budget to boost reimbursements for health care providers who take care of Medicaid patients. 

Aside from the veto overrides of SB 4 and HB 29, the governor’s office notched a partial win Thursday related to that pressure campaign. Another much-watched bill Gianforte opposed, House Bill 37, would have significantly changed the state’s process for responding to child welfare cases by requiring a judicial warrant for child removals except in certain emergencies — a measure the health department said risked tying caseworkers’ hands in urgent scenarios. Despite near unanimous support for HB 37 during the legislative session, lawmakers did not meet the two-thirds requirement to reverse Gianforte’s veto. The override failed by seven votes in the House.  

Carlson, the sponsor of HB 37 and among the bill’s most vocal champions, said she was “very disappointed” in the outcome of the override poll. She cited multiple hurdles the legislation faced throughout the legislative session, including a weeks-long delay in transmitting it to the governor’s desk even after it had passed both chambers. Conversations about requiring judicial warrants for non-emergency removals will continue throughout the interim before the next legislative session, she said.

“Parties involved in this process have notice now that this issue is not going away. Montana leads the nation in time it takes for a family to receive judicial review of removals. Between the constitutional implications and the best interest of the child and the family, this is simply not acceptable,” Carlson said. “We can do better.”

The failure of HB 37’s override was due to flips of support from some Republicans and Democrats. Other lawmakers, including Rep. Llew Jones, R-Conrad, simply did not return their ballots in time to have them counted. Dissenting lawmakers who responded to MTFP’s inquiries on Friday said they were swayed by the governor’s reasoning against the bills as presented in his veto letters. 

Rep. Alice Buckley, D-Bozeman, the sponsor of the affordable childcare bill awaiting Gianforte’s signature, was among the legislators who voted to uphold the governor’s vetoes of HB 29 and HB 37, despite having supported both policies during the session. She attributed her decision to a reconsideration of the reforms the governor rejected.

“The vetoes caused me concern about the administration’s interest and ability to implement these policies,” Buckley said in a Friday statement. “I felt like we needed to come back to the drawing board over the interim and search for more workable policy solutions.”

The post Lawmakers override governor’s vetoes of state hospital reforms appeared first on Montana Free Press.

The Bedford County School Board voted Thursday to approve a policy preventing teachers from initiating discussions with students about sexual orientation or gender identity.

The policy, which was amended from a 2021 version, is the first of its kind in the state at the school board level, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia. It’s also an example of a growing national debate about what teachers can discuss in their classrooms.

The board voted 5-1 to approve the policy update, titled “teaching about controversial issues.” The new language says that teachers may respond to questions from students about sexual orientation or gender, but can’t start those conversations outside of approved curriculum. 

One example that was frequently referenced in discussions about the proposed change had to do with questions that students might have about a teacher’s personal life after seeing a family photo in the classroom.

Under the initial language of the policy update, a teacher would not be able to engage in that conversation at all. Though the board members who wrote the policy said the update applies to curriculum discussions only, others had expressed concerns that the language was too vague and didn’t support students and faculty who identify as LGBTQ+.

The language was amended before the vote to say that the teacher can respond to student questions but should avoid being forthcoming about their life outside the classroom. 

The policy was last revised in fall 2021; prior to that it was last updated in 2012. 

The most recent version said that in teaching about “controversial topics,” instructors were expected to “provide instruction in an atmosphere that is free from bias, prejudice, or coercion,” and to keep related instruction to a level that’s appropriate for the students in question. It did not dictate how or whether teachers could discuss sexual orientation or gender.

School board members Marcus Hill and Christopher Daniels, who sit on the board’s intergovernmental affairs committee with the superintendent, proposed the updated policy for review at the board’s April meeting. 

Minutes from the March 2023 committee meeting, where a review of the policy was first discussed, are not included in monthly minutes archived in a Bedford County Public Schools Google Drive folder.

In a heated discussion about the language of the proposed policy at the board’s May meeting, Daniels stressed that parents should be the first to respond to their children’s questions about sexual orientation or gender, not teachers or counselors.

On Thursday, school board member Susan Mele cast the only vote against the policy change. In discussion before the vote, she raised concerns that the policy language may make it difficult to fairly determine whether classroom discussions are “reasonable” or “controversial.”

The ACLU sent a letter to the school board on June 6 warning against approving the policy change.

“By using incredibly broad terms to define its prohibitions, this provision invites discriminatory enforcement,” the letter says. “Anyone who discusses or acknowledges any aspect of LGBTQ+ identity will fear running afoul of the policy, while the myriad of daily explicit and implicit discussions of heterosexuality or cisgender identity will be assumed to be the default and thus permissible under this policy.” 

Hill City Pride, a nonprofit supporting the LGBTQIA+ community in the greater Lynchburg area, also issued a letter ahead of the vote. “Due to its subjective nature and a lack of clear guidelines, teachers will have no definitive way of knowing which conversations will be perceived as appropriate,” it wrote. “This will breed an environment of fear for educators, students and all who identify as LGBTQIA+, which will result in their silence and isolation.” 

School board chair Susan Kirby said she didn’t comment on the policy when it was first discussed earlier in the spring. “I do know there are a lot of homes in this county in which the teacher is the only one that a student feels safe going to talk to,” she said.

She added, “On the same token, I believe teachers should maintain professionalism and keep their personal life at home as much as possible.”

Some in the audience applauded the move after a public comment session that included mixed reactions from community members.

Amy Snead, a parent who identified herself as a member of the parental rights group Moms for Liberty, said during public comment, “If an issue arises such as gender identity or sexual orientation, the parents should always be the first conversation about this, regardless of anything else.” Critics of Moms for Liberty say it promotes conspiracy theories that children are being sexualized in school.

In his remarks following the vote, Superintendent Marc Bergin said that Bedford County Public Schools does not tolerate discrimination against staff or students “with regard to any of their personal characteristics” and that “school is and must always remain a safe space for everyone.”

The revised policy resembles a law passed in Florida last year to prohibit discussion of sexual orientation and gender in classrooms. Opponents of the legislation have termed it the “Don’t Say Gay” law; it is officially called the Parental Rights in Education law.

Pro-LGBT group Equality Virginia has called the Bedford County approval the state’s first “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” rule and has said it could lead to further limitations on classroom discussion. 

Some Virginia school systems have considered similar rule changes that reflect policies Gov. Glenn Youngkin has proposed since taking office last year. 

Youngkin, who has promoted the role of parents in education, has called for additional policies that would prevent educators from addressing students by a pronoun that doesn’t correspond with their enrollment documents and would require transgender students to use restrooms that correspond with their biological sex. The Virginia Department of Education is still reviewing public comment in response to those proposed policies.

Bedford County Public Schools has complied with a 2022 state law that mandates school systems have policies to notify parents about any curricular material that could be viewed as sexually explicit.

In Orange County, north of Charlottesville, the school board has tabled a discussion on whether to implement a policy requiring schools to notify parents if a student “self-identifies” their gender.

The post Bedford County School Board approves policy limiting discussion of sexual orientation and gender appeared first on Cardinal News.

With President Joe Biden’s signature fresh on legislation that would expedite the completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, pipeline officials aim to have it up and running by year’s end, while the project’s opponents are considering their options.

The Fiscal Responsibility Act, which Biden signed Saturday, suspends the U.S. debt ceiling for nearly two years. It also includes a provision specific to the Mountain Valley Pipeline: It authorizes all remaining permits and other approvals necessary for the natural gas pipeline’s construction and operation, and it shields the project from further legal challenges by removing the jurisdiction of courts to review such approvals.

Initially planned for completion in 2018, construction on the 303-mile pipeline through Virginia and West Virginia has effectively been halted since 2021 by federal and state permitting delays and by legal battles brought by landowners, environmentalists and others who have challenged the pipeline’s acquisition of private property through eminent domain and its impact on forests, streams, wetlands and endangered species, among other legal grounds.

“The MVP project has gone through more environmental review and scrutiny than any natural gas pipeline project in U.S. history, having been issued the same state and federal authorizations two and three times, only to have those authorizations be routinely challenged and vacated in court,” Thomas Karam, chairman and CEO of Equitrans Midstream, the pipeline’s operator, said in a news release after Biden signed the bill.

The $6.6 billion, 42-inch pipeline is set to start in northwestern West Virginia and proceed into Virginia, where it will pass through Giles, Craig, Montgomery, Roanoke and Franklin counties before connecting to a compressor station in Pittsylvania County. Pipeline officials say the project is more than 90% complete, though opponents dispute that claim.

Pipeline supporters say the project is an important source of secure, domestic, lower-carbon energy that meets a demand for natural gas. U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, who was the primary driver of the pipeline provision’s inclusion in the debt-limit deal, called it a “critical energy security project” and said it “opens up markets for our natural resources, giving us untold new revenue sources and developing industries that our grandchildren and future generations will benefit from.”

Opponents say the project is unnecessary and harmful to the environment, both in terms of future greenhouse-gas emissions and the impact of its construction — and some say they aren’t ready to give up the fight.

“Even if some of these permits are issued and initially shielded from judicial review, that’s not necessarily the end of the line,” said Jason Rylander, senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, which advocates for species protection and other environmental causes. “The pipeline still has to cross some of the most difficult terrain along the route, through the Jefferson National Forest and other areas, and there will be opportunities to hold them accountable for the damage they are continuing to do.”

Beyond watching the pipeline’s progress to see what comes next, it’s unclear what specific further options might be available to pipeline opponents.

After Thursday’s Senate vote, the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights — or POWHR — coalition released a statement from Denali Nalamalapu, its communications director, saying, “Our global movement to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline is stronger than ever.

“While we are outraged and devastated in this unprecedented moment, we will never stop fighting this unfinished, unnecessary, and unwanted project. Our hearts are broken but our bonds are strong,” the statement said.

Asked about specific next steps, Nalamalapu replied in an email: “We don’t have clear answers at the moment but we likely will in the coming days/weeks.

“Right now we are focusing on mobilizing in front of the White House on June 8th to respond to this unprecedented decision and hold Biden accountable to his broken climate promises,” Nalamalapu wrote, referring to a protest, sponsored by People vs. Fossil Fuels, scheduled in front of the White House from 2 to 4 p.m. Thursday.

Tom Cormons, executive director of the grassroots environmental protection group Appalachian Voices, said in a statement that “the fight is not over.”

“Defeating this unnecessary and ill-conceived project that has already degraded water quality across two states and would contribute significantly to the climate crisis if it is completed and brought into service is a top priority,” Cormons said.

Preserve Bent Mountain, which is a local chapter of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League and part of the POWHR coalition, released a statement saying, “It is not yet clear whether the stench of the MVP/debt limit deal will surpass legal scrutiny.”

“While repulsed at this Dirty Deal, we will go forward — as we have since the inception of this destructive boondoggle, with all regulatory and legal challenges available. We will not be governed by the gas industry,” the group said in a statement sent by member Roberta Bondurant, a Roanoke County resident.

One possible path forward for opponents could be contesting the pipeline provision itself.

“Clearly the bill, or what will soon be the law, forecloses most court actions on the pipeline. But the one thing that is left is a possible challenge to the law itself, presumably on constitutional grounds,” said David Sligh, conservation director of Wild Virginia, an environmental advocacy nonprofit. 

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, suggested the same during a conference call with reporters last week ahead of the Senate’s vote on the bill. Senators also voted 30-69 to defeat an amendment brought by Kaine that would have removed the Mountain Valley Pipeline provision from the debt-limit legislation. 

“I would think that frankly the only option under this bill is not to challenge any aspect of the pipeline but to challenge, did Congress have the legal ability to do what it just did?” Kaine said. “That would be the only remaining challenge.

“Now of course at the end of the day, once the pipeline’s underway, there may be provisions where people can say, ‘Wait a minute, you didn’t do the restoration on my land right,’” Kaine said. “We haven’t eliminated that down the road, if the pipeline violates state laws, because in both West Virginia and Virginia the construction of the pipeline has violated water quality standards and state agencies have been able to challenge them. They still have to comply with state laws.”

Kaine noted that the authors of the Mountain Valley Pipeline provision appear to have anticipated a potential legal challenge against the provision itself: The bill specifies that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit “shall have original and exclusive jurisdiction over any claim alleging the invalidity of this section or that an action is beyond the scope of authority conferred by this section.”

Sligh, of Wild Virginia, said environmental advocates will continue monitoring Mountain Valley Pipeline’s work on the ground, ensuring that any citizen complaints are funneled to the appropriate governmental agencies and following up to verify that regulatory rules are enforced.

“I have looked at thousands — thousands — of the inspection reports that the state of Virginia has done … and they have done a pretty good job of being out there and documenting some of the problems, a lot of the problems. But Virginia has not done what it needs to do to stop them once it finds them,” he said.

Beyond that monitoring work, Sligh said, “I think everybody is quickly trying to assess what else is possible.”

The post With path cleared for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, opponents weigh next steps appeared first on Cardinal News.

Yesterday, May 31, the Olympia Site Plan Review Committee examined the application of Thomas Architecture Studios on the development of the ‘Carnegie Whiskey Library’ during a