transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] From Red Oak to Greenville, Bluefield to Orange, and Goldvane to Silver Beach, The Virginia Press Room features the voices of Virginia's press corps from every corner of Virginia. The podcast is a joint production of the Virginia Public Access Project and VPM News. Now, here's the host of The Press Room, Michael Pope.

Speaker 2:
[00:22] In the Press Room this week, we are joined by an all-star panel of journalists from The Virginia Press Corps. First up is a reporter for Axios Richmond, Sabrina Moreno. Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 3:
[00:31] Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2:
[00:32] We are also joined by the publisher, editor, and founder of The Henrico Citizen, Tom Lappas. Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 4:
[00:39] Great to be with you.

Speaker 2:
[00:40] Rounding out our all-star panel is the Dean of The Virginia Press Corps, a reporter for VPM News, Dean Mirshahi. Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 5:
[00:48] Glad to be here, Michael. Thank you.

Speaker 2:
[00:49] All right, let's get right into it with our headlines of the week. Dean Mirshahi, of VPM News, you're first with this. What's your headline of the week?

Speaker 5:
[01:03] My headline of the week is the tragic story from last week that my colleagues, Megan Pauley, Patrick Larson, and Sean McGowie, others across the country covered the killing of Dr. Cerina Fairfax, who police say was murdered by her strange husband, Justin Fairfax, who was Virginia's Lieutenant Governor from 2018 until 2022. Police say he killed himself afterwards. Cerina was a mother of two, a daughter of a dentist with her own practice in Fairfax County. Her death has drawn a lot of attention for the need to better address domestic violence. There were a lot of statements in the aftermath, Governor Abigail Spanberger, former Governor Ralph Northam, sharing condolences with the families, the two children. I wanted to just read the statement that Amy Spain, the attorney who was working for Cerina on the divorce, she was seeking, that she shared with the press. It says, the death of Cerina Fairfax leaves an immeasurable void in the lives of all who knew and loved her. Above all else, Cerina was a devoted mother to her beautiful children, who are the very center of her world. She embodied the true meaning of motherhood through her unconditional and unwavering devotion to her children, providing a constant source of love, protection, and guidance. Yeah, so it was just a really tragic story, and I know that a lot of others covered it, and I'm sure everyone else in the shows heard about it or other covered it last week. So I just wanted to touch on that.

Speaker 3:
[02:51] Something else that kept coming up last week was also that Cerina was a graduate of VCU School of Dentistry, and its interim dean described her as a mentor, role model, and friend to many. And I think that has also shown kind of a shift in how this industry reports about murder, suicide, how we report about domestic violence. I think a lot of news outlets were lifting up the domestic violence part of the situation and how gun violence also affects women, how women are very often more likely to be killed by their partners. And I think that's something that has been cutting through the noise in this past week. And so that's been good to see because I think in recent years we've seen a really big pivot. It used to not be that way. And I think that's also what's making the national headlines.

Speaker 2:
[03:43] These kinds of stories always make you wonder what kind of intervention might have prevented this tragedy. I mean, yeah, just a lot of, I mean, it's a horrible story and it leads everyone to a lot of second guessing about what could have been to prevent this from happening. But yeah, it's a really tragic story. Tom Lappas of the Henrico Citizen. What's your headline of the week?

Speaker 4:
[04:08] Well, we have had an interesting budget process in Henrico County. Obviously, we're a main suburb of Richmond. And historically, as long as I've covered the county, which is all the way back to 1998, the Board of Supervisors and the School Board have gotten along very well. That relationship has been pretty solid. This year, we've started to see a few cracks in that relationship. The Board of Supervisors last week approved a budget of almost $2 billion for the coming fiscal year. But supervisors took up some extra time to kind of specifically push back at this narrative that some school board members have kind of promoted that the supervisors were underfunding schools or not funding all of the positions that the school board had requested. The gist of things is that the Board of Supervisors every year allocates a lump sum to the school board and the school board can do whatever it wants to with that money. This year the school board approved a budget, a proposed budget in February that would have included funding for 153 new positions. Shortly thereafter, the county manager, John Votokus, asked all county agencies to reduce their spending forecast by a little bit. And so that prompted the school board then to go back and eliminate 62 positions from that 153 new positions that it was asking for. So the final budget that it presented to the board of supervisors included 91 new positions. But in the interim, some school board members, teachers have reached out to the board of supervisors and said, hey, please fully fund education, fund those positions that you've cut. And the supervisor's point has been, well, we didn't cut anything. You proposed this budget to us in the end that had 91 new positions. And last week, we fully funded it. So there's been some, just back and forth, some kind of squabbling going on a few months now. There seem to be some personality differences. And what we've heard in our reporter, Leanna Hardy, who covers government and schools, has said that just some folks have told her on both boards that there's just not a lot of communication necessarily between some members. But one of the supervisors during last week's meeting said essentially, you know, we're giving you $914 million. If these extra positions are so important that you think they're critical, you can fund them and cut something else out of your budget. You know, again, you get to spend that money however you want to. So that's been interesting. Just again, for Henrico, which I think has always prided itself on running very smoothly, everybody gets along, the county does well financially. It's just a little different look than we have seen historically. And also, you know, it's interesting because four of the five members on the Board of Supervisors are Democrats. And even though the school board, folks are not allowed to run with a party affiliation, but essentially three of the school board members are Democrats as well. So it's been kind of this inter-party, inter-party sort of back and forth. And just kind of an interesting thing to observe and to cover.

Speaker 3:
[07:18] And Tom, how different is that from previous years? You asked me because we're seeing those similar tensions pop up between Richmond City Council and the Mayor's administration. And even though that's been, you know, tail as old as time, it just keeps heating up a little bit. And it reminded me of that when I read that piece in the Henrico Citizen. And so I'm just curious, especially someone who's covered this so long, been in the county, how different is what's happening now? And do you also feel like it's heating up in ways that it hasn't before?

Speaker 4:
[07:47] Yeah, I think it definitely has. And I don't know, again, I don't think it's a huge problem, per se. But just publicly, you know, if there have been these disagreements in the past, they've largely been kept behind closed doors in Henrico. I think that's been a testament to the leadership, both on the general government side and on the school side. And not to take anything away from, you know, the folks that are in those positions now. I think they're both very capable leaders. But you know, you've had some new, a lot of new members on both of these boards in the last, you know, three, four, five years. And some of them, I think, have come in, maybe not afraid to speak their mind, maybe a little more than has been the case in the past. And so that may be part of it. I think another part is just, again, like these individual relationships. You know, two people from the same district, one on school board, one on board of supervisors, may just not get along that well. And so communication suffers and here we are. There's also been a lot of back and forth, and this is going back decades really, but about the school system, historically the West End schools do very well, and Eastern Henrico schools have challenges. I think most of those are related to socioeconomic issues. But you know, the supervisors say, hey, we're getting calls from people wondering why the schools aren't as good in the East End as in the West End. What are you guys doing about it? And the school board says, well, you know, we're doing everything we can. But there's always sort of that undertone of like, how do we fix this? You know, and so I think that sometimes leads to some disagreements as well.

Speaker 2:
[09:19] I was curious that you said there's a history of the supervisors getting along with the school board members, because in my experience in Alexandria, the city council, the school board members are constantly at each other's throats. And, you know, the school board will say, we need X amount of money for our budget this year. And the city council will say, no, you don't. And this happens like every year. And I get the sense there might be even some gamesmanship going on here where the school board is overstating the needs. So because they know the city council is not going to give them the full amount of what they ask for. So they might ask for too much money knowing that they are not going to get the full amount, you know, as a kind of a strategy in a way of negotiation strategy. Do you think, Tom, do you think there is some of that going on in Henrico?

Speaker 4:
[10:02] Yeah, I don't know. You know, I think, again, historically, like the school board has always known pretty much if we ask, you know, if we ask for this money and we can justify it, the Board of Supervisors will do everything they can to provide it. And they've always fully funded those requests. And I think have prided themselves on the fact that, you know, most years, about half of the budget is going to schools, and this year is no different or this coming year is no different. And so I don't know, I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth, but I think that, you know, that expectation has always kind of been there. Like, you know, if we can demonstrate the need, the funding is there. And, you know, and the supervisor said it may still be there. You know, this is a budget proposal. If we get more state funding than we expect, then we may have more money to put back into the budget. But for now, you got to make do with, you know, the $914 million that we're giving you.

Speaker 5:
[10:50] Tom, I was wondering, you know, lawmakers in the General Assembly are not expecting a state budget deal by later this week. Have county officials, you know, mentioned that any kind of concerns over just not knowing what's coming out the General Assembly?

Speaker 4:
[11:06] You know, I would say historically, county is very, very conservative in how it budgets. It ends up with a rainy day fund of, you know, $450 million or something every year, just because they're super conservative in how they approach budgeting. And I think historically it's proven, you know, to be beneficial for them. So they know that it's gonna be less than they would like. And I suspect that the cuts to the proposed budgets that they've made go above and beyond that. So anything that they do get on top of this, you know, it's kind of gravy. They're able to do with it what they need to do.

Speaker 2:
[11:44] Sabrina Moreno of Axios Richmond, what's your headline of the week?

Speaker 3:
[11:50] So I wrote about how Governor Spanberger is kind of charting this moderate path in Virginia, which is kind of a hot topic. Republicans would be very quick to say that that is absolutely not true. And that's a huge thing that we've seen, not just in the past year and throughout our campaign, but for years since she's been in Congress. And I think it speaks to just a really interesting tension, right? Republicans call out the redistricting push and also the latest thing with Spanberger adding Virginia to that national popular vote compact. There's this really interesting tension where progressives don't claim Spanberger as one of their own. And I think that the governor is okay with that. But at the same time, a lot of Republicans don't give in to that moderate sentiment of the governor being a moderate. And so it's fascinating. But especially the criticism from the left and maybe more progressive people in her party, they've kind of doubled down on her actions regarding immigration enforcement, crime, the weed market. And that's also something that the Democratic Party got some heat back in 2020 when they were trying to figure out how we do this retail weed market. And so that's kind of the big picture. And it kind of cemented that difference in her approach to governing. It kind of tied that to what we saw last week with the bills that she signed, the bills that she vetoed, and the bills that she amended. And so I think it'll be interesting to see what happens this week. But also it's not very new for Governor Spanberger either. Back in 2020, one of the things that kind of was very front and center was that call after Democrats did nationwide did not do very well. And she kind of slammed a lot of the more progressive people in her party back then, saying that, you know, things like defund the police, any mention of socialism is just going to kind of run them into the ground. And that also sparked a lot of pushback back then, six years ago, from more progressive people in the party. So I think it will be interesting to see what happens next. But that's kind of what it looked like big picture.

Speaker 5:
[14:07] Yeah, Sabrina, I remember that time in terms of when she was in Congress and the audio of that caucus call came out and she was, you know, at certain points she was calling out reporters who were laying on the call. And so it didn't seem as if she was, you know, trying to hide or shy away from what she was saying at that point in terms of the defund the police movement at that time. I am interested in terms of what you said about her actions on bills. You mentioned some, but are there any specific ones that kind of stood out to you in terms of, you know, showing kind of this more moderate stance that, you know, Spanberger has?

Speaker 3:
[14:46] I think that slowing down of regulation comes to the weed market or that legislation, vetoing the legislation that would restrict plea agreements, you know, that would not allow prosecutors to give the option where somebody needs to give up their constitutional rights. There's also that bill that limits felony charges for drug residue possession. And so she said that it restrict prosecutors. And also like this is not very surprising. And especially as someone who was a former CIA officer, but that is something that people have really pushed back on her. And there's of course also the amendments, which my colleague Carrie Pfeiffer wrote about. And we've seen that push back with immigration enforcement, for example, the immigration enforcement bills. The lawmakers behind them essentially were like, OK, well, these amendments take out any sort of enforcement that could actually have any teeth. And so I think we're seeing that through these kind of bills. I think we're mostly seeing it through criminal justice bills. And a lot of her vetoes, she was talking about how this would weaken public safety. And a lot of activists were very quick to jump on that and disagree with her and say, well, this is more of the same from Democrats again. And so I think it's coming up mostly on that, on recreational weed sales and union support measures.

Speaker 2:
[16:05] It is really interesting that Spanberger has obviously had this career of trying to position herself as a moderate. She was in Congress. She had a very moderate voting record compared to all the other members of Congress. And then in office as governor, her actions do seem kind of centrist. You mentioned the law and order image that she's got. She vetoed that mattress tax. She is in favor of, seemingly in favor of keeping the exemption for data centers as a way to help businesses. On paper, it does kind of look like she's got this moderate image. Sabrina, here's the thing that strikes me. Republicans don't believe that. Don't believe that she's moderate. They think that she's super liberal. So it's kind of like she's losing on both fronts here. From the perspective of the Democrats, they're not liking some of her more moderate things because they want to see someone who's more on the left side of the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, she's not really gaining any traction on the Republican side either. I mean, you look at that poll that came out, that seems to indicate she's got kind of an image problem here. So she might be losing ground on the left and not gaining any ground on the right.

Speaker 3:
[17:19] And that's what I think is super interesting because that to me is what happens when you are a centrist, right? You're in the middle because there's not a poll to either side. But something I did think was interesting, Trump's former White House Chief of Staff actually posted about my story and said, Governor Spanberger has, one, ended agreements with ICE, two, push assault weapons bans and other attacks on the Second Amendment, three, prioritize climate alarmism over lowering energy costs by rejoining RIDGIE. Nothing about this has been moderate. And so I found that fascinating because I think that gives an insight to what some Republicans are thinking when it comes to Governor Spanberger and where their points of contention are. And so it's interesting, but then you could talk to people on the left and they would say that she hasn't gone far enough. So I think the tension is fascinating. But to me, that's what happens when you're a moderate, you're going to piss off everybody. But both sides would probably also disagree with that.

Speaker 4:
[18:16] I also have wondered, and I mean, we don't really cover state government, but almost as an observer, is it even possible in this political climate for anyone on either side to gain a lot of ground with the other party? Because it feels like, to whatever extent they can, each party is sort of latching on to anything about the candidate from the other side, or the governor representative, whoever it is from the other side, to try to point out, hey, they're one of them, right? They're not us, they're not looking out for us. It feels to me like that's just sort of where we are. But I'm wondering, I guess, if there are actions that she has taken or has it taken that Republicans can accurately say, hey, this is a great example of why she's a tried and true liberal that we should really oppose, or is it just rhetoric that is designed to rile up a base?

Speaker 3:
[19:09] Yeah, and I do think that's interesting because it's also difficult in this political climate to define what a Republican or a Democrat is, and when we say leftist, what a leftist is, what a progressive is, I think that that definition changes depending on who you're speaking to, and I think it also has changed over the past couple of years. And so that's the other interesting part is that in this political climate, that definition is very murky on either side.

Speaker 2:
[19:37] All right. Now it's time for some insider info. This is when our top reporters reveal the story behind the story, giving us an inside scoop on Virginia politics. Tom Lappas of the Henrico Citizen, you're first with this. What's your insider info?

Speaker 4:
[19:54] Well, I actually have to credit Sabrina for this one because she brought it to my attention last month that this company called Noda News, which I had never heard of, had launched a handful of local news-oriented websites all throughout the United States, including one in Henrico County. And Noda is a pretty large company. They work with a lot of journalism organizations. They sort of provide these AI solutions for them, different tools, I guess, that are supposed to help them do better journalism, among other things. But looking at the Henrico website that they had launched, it looked pretty suspiciously familiar, because almost all the articles there were just plagiarized versions of our own work at The Citizen, even down to original photos that my reporters had taken while they were out at events. And so I think this sort of thing is not really unusual to those of us in journalism. You'll see kind of these computer AI-generated sites pop up all over the place here and there where your story has been altered in such a way and they kind of gone through it and just used a few different words here and there to try to make it look original. But this one kind of stood out to me just because of the brazenness of it from a company that was, you know, this actually is in this space to some extent. And after Sabrina wrote about it a few days later, the Poynter Institute folks wrote a long piece about it. They found like 70 or so examples over the last few months of this company ripping off coverage from like 30 different outlets and just kind of repurposing it as their own. And, you know, their claim has been, well, we're using AI in conjunction with real human reporters and we're trying to solve this local news crisis, you know, in different markets where we can. But the person who was sort of overseeing some of these sites anyway was actually in Guatemala and I imagine has never been to any of the places that he was, you know, quote unquote, writing about. And so, you know, to me, it was just sort of a, I guess, another wake up call that this is sort of where we are and are heading if we're not careful in journalism and in local news. And it's, you know, again, there's like all these companies that feel like, hey, we've got the silver bullet, we're going to fix the local news issue. But if this is how they do it, using, you know, computers and people in other countries and just ripping off content from real journalists and real reporters, it should be a wake up call to everyone that, you know, if you have a local news source that you trust and that you value and that is giving you legitimate news and not taking sides, support it however you can. Subscribe, donate, share their information because the alternative is a world where we're just not getting real news anymore. And that's a problem for everybody because you really can't have educated discussions about what's happening in a community, what should happen next, unless there is a baseline level of knowledge among people who live there and who are stakeholders there. And, you know, we're seeing more and more communities where that just doesn't exist anymore. And so I always equate it to like, you can't have a conversation about calculus to somebody, or with somebody who thinks 2 plus 2 is 12. You have to get them over that initial hump first before you can get up to that higher level. And I think it's the same thing in communities. You know, people just, if they're not getting local news coverage, they stop understanding how the Planning Commission works and what the school board does and just very basic things. And you really can't get beyond that. So again, kind of an eye opener for us. But unfortunately, something I think we'll see more of, not less.

Speaker 3:
[23:41] Yeah, and something I thought was fascinating about that, especially as AI proliferates across the news industry. This entire situation really showed that AI really is not at the point where it can replace journalists and on-the-ground reporting because a lot of the news sites from Noda pulled from other local news outlets, not just in Chesterfield and Henrico, but in other ones across the country and other Axios local reporters, have mentioned that they also noticed this copying. If you were to take away those local news outlets, all that Noda could really pull from are these press releases. These press releases are not going to be critical against their own government. They're not going to break down that nitty-gritty of the history of the school board, of this city council, of this mayor. That's something that you're just not going to be able to get without living here or without at least knowing the history, without talking to real people and showing up. And so in a way, maybe this is me being a little optimistic. It was nice to see that it's just not possible right now. And people like Virginia State House reporter, like local reporters, we're still needed. AI hasn't gotten to the point that it can do what we do. And that is a little optimism for me for this week.

Speaker 2:
[25:07] I'm glad we can have some optimism about this, because I find there's a lot to say about this. And a lot of it's disconcerting, right? I mean, it's one thing for a pop-up AI company to steal a bunch of content, and then you find out what's going on, and you complain to the server, and it goes away. That's actually not what we're talking about here, because this company is very well known in journalism circles, because this is a company, before they launched this news outlet, they created AI tools for newsrooms, and they had people using their tools at the Boston Globe, and Nextar Media Group, and this is a very well-known group that created AI tools, and then all of a sudden, it started creating news outlets, and that's where it got into problems, because it was stealing, plagiarizing from the Henrico Citizen and elsewhere. This is obviously a topic that journalists are constantly talking to themselves about. I know where I live in Alexandria, there is a newly created outlet that has the guy who runs it. As a result of knowing that we're going to have this discussion, I looked at his output in one day. He had 13 bylines in one single day. Like, do I think this individual wrote 13 stories a day, or is he creating AI content and putting his byline on it? I mean, his competitor that has a similar outlet had eight stories that day with three bylines. So you got one news, and so they're actually competing for the same space here. So you got one outlet that has 13 stories with one byline, and the competing outlet has eight stories with three bylines. It's almost, it reminds me of the ballad of John Henry, right? It's like the man versus the machine. And I'd like to think that the human is going to win, humankind is going to win there, but every science fiction movie I've ever seen seems to indicate the machines are gonna win in the end. So I mean, Sabrina, I'm glad to hear that you're optimistic about it.

Speaker 3:
[27:16] Yeah, and I do think, and I know that this is controversial within the journalism industry, but I also think that the way to get ahead of this is to get ahead of AI. I think that there's a lot of... I think there are really great ways that this industry can use them, but the issue is, is that oftentimes, the people who are launching these tools are very detached from journalism. They're not reporters. They're not people who know the ethical guidelines. And I think that's where it gets murky. And if I were to have to choose, I would rather reporters be at the forefront of molding these AI tools, like actual journalists, so it can be done responsibly. But it's just... But I always think of this when things like this happen, and where I'm like, wow, if somebody else had been in charge, maybe it would have been different, and this wouldn't have happened. But we're probably going to see this pop up more often than not in the future.

Speaker 2:
[28:17] Sabrina Moreno of Axios Richmond, the human intelligence of Sabrina Moreno, you're next on this, what's your insider info?

Speaker 3:
[28:25] So I'll be talking about CarMax Park in Richmond, which is officially open, but there's a lot of major questions behind the scenes that aren't resolved. And so as we've been reporting, opening day came, but ahead of opening day, there was a legal threat, a $6.5 million funding dispute, and an unresolved deal with Virginia Commonwealth University. And officials haven't really said where any of that stands. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because CarMax Park has really been this real-time test of kind of the state's economic development playbook, right? Heavy public financing, a state university partner, future tax revenue expected to make the numbers work. That sounds really familiar with what we've heard with data centers. But right now, a lot of those key pieces with CarMax Park, for example, aren't lining up. And sources tell me that the Flying Squirrels, this parent company, and VCU are not closer to any agreement for VCU baseball playing at that stadium. And tensions are still pretty high. And on top of that, while the city has promised to pay the navigators of Flying Squirrels' parent company $6.5 million in stadium-related costs, which is what initially led to that threat of legal action, that first payment still has not been made. And so despite that ribbon cutting and all the fanfare, the financial and legal pieces of this deal are still very much in flux. And yeah, so it kind of raises this familiar question that we've all probably heard when covering politics and local government, is what happens if these deals aren't fully locked in by the time a project opens, right? How much risk ends up falling on taxpayers? And so we'll be looking out for that. And the city's Economic Development Authority has a meeting this week. So that'll definitely be a place to watch for any movement on that.

Speaker 4:
[30:00] Yeah, Sabrina, that's a question I had as a baseball fan. First and foremost, it's great that the stadium is open. Finally, it's been forever that we've been waiting for it. But just kind of wondering what the finances look like. I have to assume part of the deal was made with the expectation that VCU would be a tenant there. I think the squirrels are paying the highest rent of any minor league baseball team in the nation right now. So how do they close that gap if this doesn't ultimately happen?

Speaker 3:
[30:29] And that's one of the biggest questions, right? Because these are the stadium and the Diamond District overall is being financed with these publicly financed bonds, right? And so in theory, and maybe not even in theory, this is going to fall on the public if this doesn't work out. And so the squirrels are going to be paying the city. It's about $3.2 million in rent per year. And that's a huge reason that we're seeing these concerts. CarMax Park can also be a wedding venue, and there's all these events that you can have there, and there's all of these premium suites. Because to pay $3.2 million in rent, you can't just be doing baseball games. And so that has been also attention behind the scenes between the city and this deal, where it's just like, it is putting the city on a pretty big... There's a lot on the city. There's a lot riding on the city and a lot on CarMax Park and Diamond District succeeding. And so I think we're going to be able to see, is this kind of what other localities in Virginia should be betting on? Or is this kind of a stadium of the past? Like, this is not what actually works in economic development. But we just don't know right now.

Speaker 2:
[31:35] Dean Mirshahi of VPM News, what's your insider info?

Speaker 5:
[31:39] We talked about it earlier, but just all of the actions that Governor Spanberger had to make last week before her deadline, making a lot of changes, you know, Democrats, you know, people within her own party, you know, lawmakers, Senate and House talked about how they felt as if they didn't get much notice about these major changes that were going to happen. Discussions weren't happening that they felt should have been happening. I spoke with Delegate Krzysiek and Senator Aird about the marijuana retail bill that she rewrote. And they both mentioned that they had, you know, some discussions but nothing really robust in terms of negotiations. And then they were, you know, taken off guard, you know, surprised by the rewrite that she did, all of the changes that they made. And Delegate Krzysiek, you know, brought up one thing about the bill that she changed, you know, in her substitute, she removed a notice, apparently, that would have gone to localities when businesses, when marijuana businesses would open up or got a license. And he says it was removed, and he didn't get a chance to kind of, you know, overview and look over the bill. So because of that, you know, he felt like it kind of, you know, it was one of the things, he says this was just one of the things that he felt kind of slipped through the cracks in the situation that if there were some discussions, but this is not something that's just, you know, limited to this bill, there are, you know, other bills. I know that, you know, state senator, I mean, the state majority leader Scott Cervo talked about not getting, you know, kind of a lot of input, you know, during the session, having people from the administration come in. So this is something that, you know, we've talked about a little bit, but it's been some kind of tension going back and forth between Democrats and the governor. So it's been something that's been interesting to watch and it'll be interesting to see what happens on Wednesday when they start, you know, taking up her vetoes and her amendments and substitutes.

Speaker 4:
[34:01] Dean, I'm wondering if you think some of these moves, at least, are like a strategic way for the governor to kind of push back against this public narrative that has really hounded her these first few months, that she's pro-tax and, you know, she put out a press release the other day saying she didn't sign all of these tax increases because those bills weren't passed by the General Assembly, sort of a tongue-in-cheek way of trying to push back against that narrative also. But how many of these were in any way anticipated? Or do you think that that could be sort of a strategy to show, hey, I'm more moderate than I'm getting credit for?

Speaker 5:
[34:38] Yeah, I mean, I think that it goes along with what Sabrina said in her reporting in terms of this image of Spanberger and vetoing the Fairfax Casino Bill. And Servo said that not much kind of discussion happened, but she's been kind of making it clear that she's going to put her stance on and put her position out clear in terms of what she was going to do. And a lot of people I spoke with, lawmakers I spoke with, just said that if there was more time to have a discussion, you know, delegate Krzysztof did mention the fact that you know, it's, you know, there's however many bills that she gets, the thousands she has to review and the marijuana bill especially was a very big bill. He told me that he felt like maybe another year in her term or another year, second year, third year, the communication to kind of work through the legislative process after bills are passed will be kind of a little bit more smoother and streamlined. But it's definitely a possibility in terms of putting out her position to go away from I guess more of a progressive kind of approach, especially with those bills.

Speaker 2:
[35:52] Yeah, perhaps it's a lesson learned for the governor staff that when a bill is being considered at every point where there's a committee meeting, the governor's office can be there in the room and offer feedback, offer suggestions, offer their perspective. They can participate, they can communicate, instead of blindsiding the lawmakers at the end of the process with stuff that they didn't even know were concerns when they were debating this in the committees. So maybe a lesson learned for future general assembly sessions. All right, now it's time for our game show segment, Buy, Sell or Hold. I'll present a topic and our panelists will make a choice. Do they want to buy, sell or hold? Our topic today, procrastination. Governor Abigail Spanberger, waiting until the last possible moment to make decisions on hundreds of bills. So many that the website wasn't even able to provide updates because it was being flooded with information well into the next day after that midnight deadline. All right, reporters, people on this panel, of course, reporters understand procrastination because nothing is as inspiring as a deadline. Sabrina Moreno, you're first with his buy, sell or hold on. Procrastination.

Speaker 3:
[37:08] So I'm a sell, but that is also hypocritical because we all tend to procrastinate. However, I do think there is a difference between, oh, I'm filing a story late and I'm running an entire state and the entire system crashes because we waited too long. But I also don't think that this is unique to Governor Spanberger. We've seen this with past governors. But I also just don't run a state. And so I also did not have 1,000 bills to look through. I know I don't know what that's like. So selfishly, I'm saying sell because that just makes it a little tougher on us when we're looking through amendment text and other language.

Speaker 2:
[37:48] Yeah, all the governors wait until the last possible moment. This is not something specific to Spanberger. But it would be helpful, I think, for not just journalists, but anybody trying to understand all of these changes to instead of getting them all at once, like you could do a thing where you release 20 on Wednesday, 20 on Friday, I mean, there could be a little bit more of a rollout than waiting to the last minute for the vast majority of stuff that you're going to do. Dean Mirshahi, VPM News, you're next on this. Buy, sell or hold on procrastination.

Speaker 5:
[38:21] Yeah, I am kind of along the same lines as Sabrina. I feel like a hypocrite in terms of how I'm reacting. But I would say sell. I agree with you, Michael. I think that in terms of being able to get out certain bills and having them out sooner and we're in chunks to make it a little bit easier. But this is obviously just a gripe from a bunch of reporters and journalists. I understand we don't run a state and don't have to review all of these bills and have to deal with the consequences of what happens at the polls or ads and everything else. But yeah, when you're given until the very last moment, you take advantage of that. So I am selling it because I don't like it as a journalist, but I kind of get it, so I don't know if that's a hold or I deserve booze, but yeah.

Speaker 2:
[39:16] I won't boo you today, Dean. Tom Lappas of the Henrico Citizen buy, sell or hold on. Procrastination.

Speaker 4:
[39:24] Well, waiting until the last possible minute is typically my strategy for making my kids dinner every night, so I'm buying because I have two kids who have baseball or basketball practices or games literally five or six days a week. I'm running a small business and trying to wear seven hats a day, and so typically the only things that I can actually get done on a given day are the things that have to be done immediately on a deadline. So I think of myself at least as a procrastinator, not by choice, but by circumstance, and perhaps a governor is the same way.

Speaker 2:
[39:52] That's a good line, a procrastinator by circumstance, not by choice. I think many of the journalists listening to this could probably relate to that. All right, now it's time to open up our Reporters Notebook. This is what our top turn list tell us. What to be on the lookout for this week, and it's going to be one heck of a week. Sabrina Moreno of Axios Richmond, what's in your Reporters Notebook?

Speaker 3:
[40:17] So being this week might be a little bit unrealistic, but I am putting together a database of the concerts in Richmond in 2025 across multiple venues and major festivals, kind of breaking down the demographics of artists. And this came about because I've noticed over the years there are being complaints about Richmond being a majority black city, but a lot of the venues that have popped up, even like the new amphitheater and these new venues, a lot of them are usually whiter country and rock artists. And there's kind of this conflict where Richmond that has been a majority black city for a very long time, kind of doesn't, isn't represented in the music that comes here outside of Jazz Fest, which is predominantly black artists. It'll be R&B and jazz and it'll also be really major artists coming, which kind of conflicts with what other venues have said, where it's like, oh, bigger artists just don't want to come here. So I'll be kind of looking at the pattern that pops up, chatting with venues on kind of why that is, and kind of getting at that thing that's popped up also over the years, where Richmenders kind of don't always feel like these venues are for us. It's for the people in the suburbs to come in and kind of give us their money, but it doesn't feel like it's for Richmenders. And so it'll be interesting to see what comes out of that and what I hear back.

Speaker 2:
[41:48] Dean Mirshahi of VPM News, what's in your reporter's notebook?

Speaker 5:
[41:52] I'm looking towards, you know, this week, the Wednesday when the General Assembly comes back to Richmond to reconvene and take up all of the amendments that Governor Spanberger made to bills, take up the vetoes. I know that a lot of the attention is, you know, we've talked already in this show about the retail weed marketplace bill. I'm interested to see kind of the tactics or move that Democrats are going to make in terms of whether or not they're going to accept Spanberger's rewritten substitute and the changes she's made or if they're going to potentially reject it and then send it back to her, forcing her to vote on the final bill they passed or veto it. Something that Delegate Krzysiek and Senator Aird, the two lawmakers behind the bill said would be a worst-case scenario. But Senator Aird did say that it will be a last-minute decision because she says she is exploring options in terms of what they can do potentially. But she says in terms of whether or not that potential of rejecting the substitute will be a last-minute decision and something that she says that told me will be a forced decision that they have to make. I'm really interested to see how this all plays out.

Speaker 2:
[43:26] Yeah. I think a lot of people are watching that marijuana marketplace, Bill, to see what happens on Wednesday. Dean, you laid out some of the options, which are the General Assembly could just approve what the governor sent them, but there seems like they're pretty unhappy with what the governor sent them. And so they could also reject the governor's amendments and send back their version of the bill and make her make a decision on either signing it or vetoing it. Then there's another version of what might happen. It's a little more complicated, but the lawmakers could sever individual bits that they don't like. For example, Spanberger creates a bunch of new criminal penalties. The General Assembly doesn't like that very much. And so there is a possibility where they could sever the parts they don't like, like the new criminal penalties, and reject those while approving the rest of the bill and then send that back to her. How do you see this playing out this week, Dean?

Speaker 5:
[44:20] The Senator wouldn't say exactly whether or not that's exactly what she'd be doing. I know that that is definitely a path of being considered, though. I've spoken with others who have mentioned that in sources who have said that. From the sense I'm getting, I feel like that is probably going to be the path that they at least attempt. I know that delegate Krzyzek said that in terms of what he feels will be the path moving forward will be a decision kind of made overall by leadership, by the Speaker, by Senate leadership, they will kind of decide on what's kind of the next, you know, they're going to move forward with this. So it would definitely be an interesting kind of maneuver and be interesting kind of to see what happens. But yeah, that's something I've also heard.

Speaker 2:
[45:09] Hi, drama on the weed bill. Forgive the pun. All right. Closing out our podcast with a strong finish. Tom Lappas of the Henrico Citizen. What's in your reporter's notebook?

Speaker 4:
[45:19] Well, we're looking forward to some new coverage from our Report for America community vitality reporter, Dina Weinstein this week. She has spent a fair amount of time over the last few months sort of analyzing the SNAP program and some of the changes that were made to it last year. In the fall and winter, she wrote a few pretty in-depth articles, visiting a number of the 30 plus food banks and food pantries in Henrico, Feedmore, which is a big food distribution entity here in Metro Richmond, and learning and talking to people who either were used to be receiving SNAP benefits and now no longer are, talking with volunteers at some of these pantries and just learning about the impacts that have been felt in our community. Henrico, as of last October, had about 37,000 people who were getting SNAP benefits. The average recipient gets about $175 a month. But then some of these changes that took effect, requiring broadening, expanding the age range of people who are subject to work requirements in order to get SNAP. Also, refugees and asylees who were just removed from the benefits because now that you have to have a green card for at least five years in order to be eligible. Henrico has seen about 5,200 people fall off that SNAP benefits list between last October and this March. Some of them potentially because they got jobs and they are now in a different bracket, but likely that most of them are simply just in the same situation except they're not getting those benefits anymore. So I think that Dean's reporting has really looked at just telling these stories regardless of what side of the aisle you might be on, whether you like this move or don't like it. There's also a bottom line financial impact because now just in Henrico alone, it's about $11 million a year in SNAP funding for residents that is now not being distributed. And so there's a trickle down effect to grocery stores, and as we've heard, and she's learned, to farmers markets, and therefore to farmers locally who can't sell their produce or their items as much as they used to. And so I think trying to examine the bigger impact that this is having in our community, that's going to be the focus of Dina's reporting. So we're looking forward to that.

Speaker 2:
[47:41] Tom, this reporting was recognized by the Virginia Press Association, right? I mean, this was one of several awards your news organization picked up from the VPA.

Speaker 4:
[47:54] Yeah, we were real fortunate to win seven awards a couple of weekends ago. Dina won three, and one of the pieces that was part of a winning entry for her, our second place entry, was her snap coverage from last year. So yeah, this is something we're really fortunate to have, both of our reporters, Dina and Liana Hardy, but because they are out in the community, they're able to go out and spend what might be a couple of days, a couple of weeks telling these stories, talking to people, observing, learning, and really trying to get into what the impact of a decision like this is in our community. Many of the things that they're writing about are having impacts everywhere, but of course, what we focused on is Henrico. So we're real fortunate to have Dina and Liana.

Speaker 2:
[48:43] Yeah, she's a rock star. I know her from her time with the Society for Professional Journalists. So congratulations. Shout out to Dina Weinstein and all the reporters who took home awards from the Virginia Press Association.

Speaker 4:
[48:54] This is The Press Room. We're busy.

Speaker 2:
[48:56] That's it for The Virginia Press Room. A joint production of The Virginia Public Access Project and VPM News. If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting VPAP and supporting VPM. Hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcasting app and, hey, write a review on Apple Podcasts. This means you. So I know listeners to this show. Now that it's over with, you can you can actually move over and start writing your review right now. All right, we'll be back next week for the next episode of The Virginia Press Room. You know, every day on Up First, NPR's Golden Globe nominated morning news podcast. We bring you three essential stories. At the heart of each story are questions. What really happened? What really mattered? What happens next? At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious and to follow the facts. Follow Up First wherever you get your podcasts and start your day knowing what matters and why. VPM.