A plan to upgrade Metro’s service and long-term sustainability by establishing dedicated funding for the transit system won backing Monday afternoon (Nov. 17) from two key panels.
The boards of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) each formally endorsed the funding plan laid out in late October by the DMV Moves Task Force at a joint meeting.
The Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC) on Thursday (Nov. 6) gave its support to two transit-funding initiatives currently working their way through a complex review process.
With no dissents, the commission signaled its backing of recommendations of the DMV Moves task force and the General Assembly’s Northern Virginia Growing Needs of Public Transit Joint Subcommittee, also known as the SJ28 Subcommittee after the state Senate resolution that established it.
Fairfax City Council members voted unanimously Oct. 28 to ask the General Assembly to remove the existing cap on taxes levied on hotel stays in the city.
The City Charter currently caps the rate at 4%, below most jurisdictions across Virginia. In Fairfax County, the occupancy tax rate increased from 7% to 9% on Oct. 1, with different portions of the revenue going toward general county funds, tourism and regional transportation.
The Town of Vienna intends to seek state funding to support a planned Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) Trail visitor center.
The request for $8 million is among more than two dozen priorities identified in the town’s legislative agenda for the Virginia General Assembly’s upcoming 2026 session.
A state legislative panel set up to identify potential new funding for Northern Virginia transit completed its work this week by delivering a firm starting number: $400 million annually.
But the panel opted against prioritizing which funding streams would work best as it readied its report for consideration during the 2026 General Assembly session.
After Virginia Democrats exceeded expectations in yesterday’s elections, optimism is high among Fairfax County lawmakers.
Flipping each of Virginia’s statewide offices with Abigail Spanberger, Ghazala Hashmi and Jay Jones winning, respectively, for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general was only a portion of the party’s statewide success on Election Day.
Voters across Virginia are now casting their Election Day ballots, but many in Fairfax County have no need for a last-minute trip to their polling place.
Just shy of 190,000 voters in Fairfax County cast a ballot during the early voting period, which ran from Sept. 19 through 5 p.m. on Saturday (Nov. 1). That’s a jump of 7.4% compared to 2021, which is the last time the three statewide races were on the ballot.
As early voting in Virginia’s November elections came to a close on Saturday (Nov. 1), Fairfax Del. Dan Helmer (D-10) was on the road in a final push to secure a victory not just for himself, but for Democratic candidates across the state.
As the campaigns chair for the Virginia House Democratic Caucus, a role he landed based on his defeat of Fairfax County’s last Republican delegate, Tim Hugo, in 2019, Helmer has been tasked with overseeing races in all 100 House districts — every single one of which will have a Democrat on the ballot.
The Virginia Senate on Friday by a 21-16 party-line vote approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would give the Virginia General Assembly the authority to redraw the commonwealth’s congressional districts mid-decade. The move follows the measure’s 51-42 party-line passage earlier this week in the House of Delegates.
If lawmakers approve House Joint Resolution 6007 again during the next legislative session in early 2026 and if voters back it in a statewide referendum, the General Assembly would gain the power — in narrowly defined circumstances — to alter the state’s 11 U.S. House districts between the 2025 and 2030 census cycles.
A Herndon man who previously represented western Fairfax County in the Virginia House of Delegates will avoid jail time after admitting to fraudulently obtaining a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan.
Democrat Ibraheem Samirah, who represented the old 86th district from 2019 until 2022, was sentenced yesterday (Thursday) by a federal judge in Alexandria to three years of probation for fraudulently obtaining the $83,300 loan for his dentist practice, NOVA Healthy Smiles (NHS), in May 2020.
