Good morning from the Mercury.
I know that you've been through a lot. But I hope what you can take away from today is this idea that you did win and you have set an example for people all across Virginia.”– Attorney General Jay Jones, speaking to former tenants of a Hampton Roads landlord whose violations resulted in jail time and the largest fair housing settlement in state history.
Lorraine Patterson-Davidson describes her displacement following harassment and retaliation from former landlord David Merryman, who has been convicted of numerous financial crimes and settled in a fair housing lawsuit. (Photo by Charlotte Rene Woods/Virginia Mercury)
By Charlotte Rene Woods
A new settlement with Hampton Roads landlord David Merryman — who is currently serving a 17-year prison sentence for defrauding the federal government — means several of his former tenants will receive a piece of $2.5 million in financial compensation over the next year.
Merryman must sell his Virginia properties, numbering over 60, and can never operate as a landlord in the state again, Attorney General Jay Jones reiterated at a roundtable discussion with some of Merryman’s former tenants Wednesday in Hampton.
The settlement money can help Lorraine Patterson-Davidson and her daughter Edwina Patterson recoup some of the financial damages caused by Merryman that resulted in their displacement, the women said.
But it can’t heal emotional wounds or recover priceless family heirlooms that were lost in the process.
Loudoun County, Va., Supervisor Michael Turner speaks about guardrails for data center projects during a panel at the Maryland Association of Counties summer conference Wednesday. Loudoun is home to one of the largest concentrations of data centers in the world, with more than 250 in the county. (Photo by Christine Condon/Maryland Matters)
By Christine Condon/Maryland Matters
Michael Turner, a county supervisor in Loudoun County, Virginia, estimates that the public perception of hyperscale data centers has shifted considerably in the last six to nine months — and he isn’t sure why.
Turner, a government official in the county with one of the world’s highest concentrations of data centers with over 250, said constituents calling to ask about them used to be pacified when they learned that their real property taxes were 25% lower than any other region in the Washington D.C. metro area.
But no longer.
"With the weakening of the VRA, people of color (in Virginia and elsewhere) will keep fighting for voting rights and fair representation. They fear regression," columnist Roger Chesley writes. (Photo by Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
COMMENTARY
By Roger Chesley
Civil rights stalwarts, politicians and academics held a requiem for the Voting Rights Act on its 61st anniversary last week, lamenting the neutering of a law that had propelled African Americans – especially in the South – into choosing their own leaders without fear of violence, murder or lesser polling place obstacles.
Activists didn’t call it a “funeral.” Yet no one underplayed the latest reversal of progress for Blacks, Latinos and other people of color in this nation’s long, tortured and oft-racist history.
By Shauneen Miranda
The U.S. Department of Justice has sued New York, Connecticut and Vermont over laws that allow immigrants in the country without permanent legal status to pay in-state college tuition in the states where they live.
Similar lawsuits are also pending in Virginia, California, Colorado, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey and Rhode Island
NEWS TO KNOW
Our daily roundup of headlines from Virginia and elsewhere.
"Firefighters union censures Spanberger over collective bargaining." | Richmond Times-Dispatch
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