The Chesterfield Daily

A full week of news from around Chesterfield County wraps up heading into the Labor Day weekend. Emergency crews responded to a gas line rupture in Midlothian that forced several families from their homes. Two court cases closed out: a former preschool teacher received a substantial prison sentence, and a judge dismissed all charges in the Shamrock Pub shooting case after finding a speedy-trial violation. The county's decision to cover GLP-1 weight-loss medications for employees offers a window into how Chesterfield is navigating sharply rising health-insurance costs. And Foxtail Coffee announced a third Richmond-area location near Brandermill.

Thursday's episode opens with a critical heat advisory scorching Chesterfield County through Thursday evening, with heat index values approaching 108 degrees. The lead covers the "One For Schools" sales tax referendum on the November 3 ballot, including the six school construction projects it would fund and the tax offsets the Board of Supervisors has committed to. The serious block addresses two difficult stories: a judge's dismissal of all eight charges in the Shamrock Pub shooting case on speedy-trial grounds, and the sentencing of a former county preschool teacher to an extensive prison term. The episode closes on a lighter note with Foxtail Coffee's expansion near Brandermill.

CareNow Urgent Care opened its second Chesterfield County location at the Shoppes at Breckenridge on Route 1, offering walk-in care seven days a week with X-rays, stitches, and most major insurance accepted. The Chesterfield Police Service Aide program, the first of its kind in Virginia when it launched in 2020, has now produced 40 sworn officers out of more than 137 aides hired in total. Elizabeth Schultz, who served on the Fairfax County School Board and later as Assistant Superintendent of Public Instruction under Governor Youngkin, has entered the race for the Clover Hill District school board seat, joining Democratic candidate Christina Romers Brady ahead of a special election expected this November.

Chesterfield County's Board of Supervisors capped a nearly six-hour meeting Wednesday by deferring a vote on whether to use Google data center revenue to cut the car tax rate from $3.25 to about $1.79 per hundred dollars of vehicle value. That vote is now set for September 23. The county's new zoning rules, which took effect in January, have effectively paused any new data center proposals while three previously approved Google campuses move forward. Separately, Dr. Kevin Catlin was sworn in as the new county administrator Monday, and Chesterfield Fire and EMS earned a national accreditation held by fewer than two percent of fire departments nationwide. And ground has broken on a 344-unit apartment project on Greenyard Road in the Swift Creek area.

This episode covers a busy stretch of Chesterfield County news centered on Wednesday's Board of Supervisors meeting. County staff briefed supervisors on Google's data center development while the Data Center Defiance Coalition rallied outside, and the board also took up votes on two Midlothian projects: an age-restricted housing community the Planning Commission opposed and a Microtel hotel it unanimously approved. On the community side, the Ride On Cannon Foundation gave out more than 250 backpacks at its sixth annual back-to-school giveaway last Saturday, and Chesterfield Parks and Recreation hosted a free Civil War history day at Historic Point of Rocks in Chester.

On Friday, August 21, the Chesterfield Daily covers the severe thunderstorm watch that swept through Chesterfield and more than sixty Virginia and North Carolina jurisdictions on Thursday evening, a federal RAISE planning grant advancing long-awaited safety improvements at the Chippenham Parkway and Hopkins Road interchange along with a road diet proposal for Hopkins Road, a back-to-school gift card giveaway at the Midlothian Target courtesy of CBS 6 and Virginia Credit Union, and two county transportation projects, a future roundabout at Old Bermuda Hundred Road and Ramblewood Drive and dual left-turn lanes coming to the Genito and Woolridge Roads intersection.

A transportation-focused episode covering five projects moving through Chesterfield County. VDOT is deep into the Environmental Impact Statement for Phase 2 of the Powhite Parkway Extension, an eight-mile proposed corridor from Woolridge Road to Route 360, backed by ten million dollars in combined federal and local funding, with a public hearing on the draft statement anticipated in early 2027. In completed news, the Dundas Road bridge over G Road wrapped up a twelve-point-eight million dollar replacement in April, adding pedestrian accommodations to a span that first opened in 1961. Two new pedestrian crosswalks featuring Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons are moving through permitting at Spring Run Road and Gateway Centre Parkway.

Wednesday's episode covers a federal rail safety grant sending two point three million dollars to Chesterfield County, a proposed forty-thousand-dollar workplace safety fine against a local manufacturer for formaldehyde exposure violations, and three transportation projects moving forward in the county: completed pedestrian tunnel liner work in Woodlake with headwalls coming this fall, new LED lighting at two Otterdale Road roundabouts, and a planned traffic signal and shared-use path at Willis and Coach Roads.

Tuesday's Chesterfield Daily covers a busy stretch of recent news around the county. Sunday's severe thunderstorms sparked three structure fires across Chesterfield and cut power to more than ten thousand homes and businesses. A man who is not a VSU student was arraigned Monday in Chesterfield County court on eight felony charges connected to an early-Saturday shooting on the Virginia State University campus that injured five people, one critically. On the lighter side, the newly opened Richmond Ice Box brings NHL-sized ice to the Brandermill area. We close with a roundup of last-week-of-summer activities, upcoming county transportation meetings, and a look back at the Clover Hill Cavaliers' hard-fought 2025 football season.

A busy week in Chesterfield County: the county board named a new administrator, two serious crashes disrupted major road corridors on back-to-back days, dozens of seniors at an independent living facility have been unable to leave their building for two weeks due to a broken elevator, and an 18-year-old from Moseley made national headlines by winning the U.S. Junior Amateur Golf Championship and earning a spot in next year's U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

On today's Thursday, August 13th episode, the Chesterfield Daily covers five stories: the school board's rollout of community forums for the 1 For Schools sales tax referendum heading to voters November 3rd, a hit-and-run crash on Chippenham Parkway that injured six people Wednesday morning, a two-week elevator outage leaving seniors trapped at Ashlake Crossings, a kitchen fire on Otterdale Road, and seeds from Hiroshima atomic bomb survivor ginkgo trees now being cultivated at the Chesterfield County Arboretum.

Wednesday, August 12, 2026. Seniors at Ashlake Crossings on Ashlake Parkway have been confined to their building for two weeks due to a broken elevator, with repairs now scheduled to begin Thursday. Mobility-impaired residents have missed medical appointments and, in at least one case, needed EMTs simply to leave the building. Chesterfield County police are investigating a shooting that occurred early Tuesday morning near Boisseau Street and Third Avenue, leaving one person hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. A separate kitchen fire also injured a county resident Tuesday. On a brighter note, a husband-and-wife team is opening the Richmond region's first Kids 'R' Kids Learning Academy in Chester, with construction underway and a spring 2027 opening targeted.

Monday evening's severe storms left a trail of downed trees, lightning damage, and hazardous road conditions across Chesterfield County. Voters will decide November 3rd whether to add a penny to the local sales tax to fund school construction and renovations, in a measure called "One for Schools" projected to raise up to seventy million dollars annually, with an offsetting property tax cut on the table if it passes. Chesterfield police are urgently searching for a missing fourteen-year-old with a medical condition who was last seen Sunday night in the Bensley area. Hope for Learning hosts its fourth annual golf fundraiser today at Brandermill Country Club in Midlothian. And the fall congressional races in the Richmond media market are shaping up to be some of the most expensive in Virginia history, with both the First and Fourth Districts drawing heavy national spending.

On this Friday edition, we kick off with a milestone for Chesterfield families: two brand-new elementary schools, Deep Creek and Bensley, have opened their doors this week, each built to hold around a thousand students. Then a pair of harder stories: police are investigating a commercial robbery on Route 1 after a male suspect assaulted an employee Wednesday night, and a county resident walks away safely after live power lines came down across his vehicle near Courthouse Road. On the lighter side, Chesterfield's internet had a field day with a loose miniature horse spotted near Elkhardt Road, and we check in on the Matoaca Warriors football program, where Coach Billy Rudd is back to lead the team into the 2026 season.

A recap of a full week of news around Chesterfield County. The county officially opened two brand-new elementary schools this week, completing major projects from the 2022 Bond Referendum just ahead of the school year. A county resident shares a survival story after live power lines trapped him inside his Jeep for close to an hour near Courthouse Road in late July. Chesterfield Police are investigating a robbery and assault from Wednesday night and are seeking a suspect. A miniature horse spotted loose near Elkhardt Road on Wednesday afternoon set off a wave of community spirit and social media affection. And Matoaca High School football welcomes back Billy Rudd as head coach, with the Warriors looking to return to the playoffs in 2026.

Tuesday morning brought heavy thunderstorms to South Central Chesterfield, dropping one and a half to two and a half inches of rain and triggering a National Weather Service flood advisory for Chester, Chesterfield Court House, and the surrounding area until 8 a.m. Chesterfield County lifted its voluntary water restrictions on August 4th, ending a month of odd/even lawn watering schedules tied to a historic drought that had left Central Virginia with a nine-inch rainfall deficit and the James River below the 1,700-cubic-feet-per-second trigger, with all six localities including Richmond, Henrico, Hanover, Goochland, and Powhatan lifting restrictions together.

Election day arrives in Dale District, where Democratic voters are choosing between interim supervisor LeQuan Hylton and consultant Kathryn Crosby to fill the Board of Supervisors seat left vacant by the October 2025 death of five-term supervisor Jim Holland. Chesterfield County also announces two federally funded pedestrian safety projects on Route 1, backed by sobering county-wide crash statistics. The show rounds out with a full week of community events, from National Night Out tonight to Saturday's Bacon's Rebellion 350th anniversary commemoration.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems announced one billion dollars in new funding to build what could be the world's first commercial nuclear fusion power plant in Chesterfield County at the James River Industrial Park, bringing their total raised to four billion dollars, with Google committed to buying half the plant's power output and operations targeted for the early 2030s. Chesterfield County launched a new website on July 23rd to answer resident questions about data center development in eastern Chesterfield, where Google, Tract, and Chirisa are among the companies with projects underway or planned. On lighter notes, free on-demand GRTC LINK rides are available along the Hull Street Road corridor Monday through Friday, and Chesterfield County Animal Services is waiving all adoption fees on August 1st from noon to four p.m. in celebration of DOGust.

Thursday, July 30 brings four stories from across Chesterfield County. Residents are pressing county officials and Google over a 2018 non-disclosure agreement that kept the tech giant's identity secret for years while it quietly assembled plans for three data center campuses totaling fifteen hundred acres and a reported nine billion dollar investment. The county's new Drone First Responders program went live this past Sunday with privacy safeguards built in from the start. Matoaca junior Kaylee Hodges claimed the Gatorade Virginia Softball Player of the Year award for the second straight year after a dominant season on the mound and at the plate. And two county summer interns take the mic on the latest episode of "Chesterfield Behind the Mic."

On today's episode: workers building Lego's massive Chesterfield manufacturing plant file a lawsuit against two subcontractors over alleged unpaid overtime going back three years; West Ridge High School and the Westerleigh-Duval road corridor both advance toward 2027 openings in western Chesterfield; VDOT plans an early-August pipe replacement closure on Old Centralia Road; and Slay Burgers, a World of Warcraft-themed smash burger restaurant, opens its second location in Chester on Route 1. We also recap last night's severe thunderstorm watch.

Today's episode covers Google's federal permit applications to build three data center campuses in Chesterfield County, a project that would impact thousands of feet of local streams and dozens of acres of wetlands as part of the company's nine billion dollar Virginia expansion. We also check in on construction progress for West Ridge High School and the North-South Collector road in western Chesterfield, both targeting August 2027 openings.

Monday, July 27, 2026. This edition opens on a heartbreaking double drowning in Chester Sunday evening, then covers a cooking fire that displaced a family on Beulah Road and a boat capsizing at Pocahontas State Park.

This Friday edition covers a week full of significant county news. Residents and parents are pushing back against Google's three planned data center campuses totaling more than fifteen hundred acres in Chesterfield, raising questions about electricity demand, water usage, noise, and community transparency. A homicide investigation is underway on Beachcrest Terrace following a shooting Wednesday afternoon, with a husband charged with second-degree murder.

Google is planning three major data center campuses in Chesterfield County totaling more than fifteen hundred acres, backed by nine billion dollars in committed investment for AI infrastructure in Virginia, but residents have raised serious concerns about power demand, water usage, noise, light pollution, and whether the public had a real voice before the projects advanced.

The Shoosmith Landfill off Route 10, which stopped taking waste in 2022, is still producing about 65,000 gallons of toxic leachate a day. In February, state inspectors found it seeping into channels that feed Swift Creek, with higher-than-legal zinc and ammonia. The owner has filed for bankruptcy, only about 19 million dollars was set aside for closure, and the state estimates a 30-year cleanup near 173 million dollars.

Google is moving ahead with three data center campuses in Chesterfield County covering more than fifteen hundred acres, known as Project Peanut, Project Loch, and Project Skye, as part of a nine-billion-dollar investment in Virginia, with residents raising concerns about water consumption, electricity demand, environmental impact, and transparency after Google declined to share project-specific numbers at public open houses.

A look at the past few days in Chesterfield County: Saturday's lightning-sparked house fires and widespread power outages from severe weekend thunderstorms, Google data center construction now underway at Bermuda Hundred with the board of supervisors capping approvals at three campuses, Dominion Energy's approved high-voltage transmission corridor cutting through western Chesterfield neighborhoods near Hallsley, a major pedestrian safety project coming to Midlothian Turnpike in August, and the grand opening today of Rock N Roll Sushi's first Virginia location in Midlothian.

A former Henrico County police officer and his fiancee, a former Henrico County teacher, have been sentenced to decades in prison after being convicted of abusing two young boys over multiple years, with the former teacher receiving more than 130 years and the former officer receiving 20 years following a guilty plea. A grandmother who helped get the boys to safety noted that school counselors had filed reports over the years that did not lead to intervention, a gap she says allowed the abuse to continue. August 4 is primary election day in Chesterfield County, with races for U.S. House, U.S.

A Chesterfield family reunited this week with the firefighters and nurses who saved their baby, born at one pound one ounce in a parking lot at 24 weeks and five days, after 132 days in the NICU at Johnston-Willis Hospital. Students at the Goddard School in Midlothian wrapped their fourth annual Junior Maker's Market, raising a thousand dollars for Connor's Heroes, a nonprofit supporting families of children living with cancer.

Richmond issued a formal violation notice to Aqua Clean Environmental, a pretreatment company on Hospital Street, for improperly discharging processed wastewater into the city's system, a case rooted in leachate from Chesterfield's Shoosmith Landfill, which had its county permit suspended in 2024 after inspectors found bypassed treatment equipment and falsified records.

Wednesday evening brought two separate emergencies to Chesterfield County: a maroon sedan crashed into a convenience store on Robious Road around six-fifteen, injuring a teenager, and roughly two hours later firefighters battled a house fire on Brandywine Avenue that displaced four adults with no injuries reported. On Thursday afternoon, Chesterfield County police closed Beach Road near Pocahontas State Park with armed officers on scene, though the department has not released any statement about what they were investigating.

Chesterfield County faced an Excessive Heat Watch over the Fourth of July weekend with heat indexes forecast between 100 and 110 degrees, forcing the cancellation of the county's July Fourth celebration at the Fairgrounds, which had drawn an expected 12,000 attendees. On the legal front, contractor Branscome Operating LLC has filed three lawsuits against the county in less than a year, covering disputes on Iron Bridge Road, Winterpock Road, and West Hundred Road, with total claims approaching twenty million dollars.

Chesterfield County officers Jacob Clark and Jacob Wells, critically injured in a shooting on May 31, have both been discharged from VCU Medical Center and are recovering at home, with community fundraising topping 60,000 dollars and a golf tournament planned for August to support their rehabilitation.

A Fourth of July weekend in Chesterfield shaped by dangerous heat. An Excessive Heat Watch covered the Richmond region with heat indexes between 100 and 110 degrees, alongside a Severe Thunderstorm Watch. That heat sent a Chesterfield County firefighter to the hospital with heat exhaustion while crews battled a commercial fire on Reymet Road, and the firefighter was expected to recover. Looking ahead, the Farmers Market returns to the County Government Complex on Wednesday and the Summer in the Parks Series comes to Cogbill Park on Thursday evening. Full stories at chesterfieldreport.com.

Happy Fourth of July! Today's holiday edition: the county moved up its Fourth of July fireworks at the Fairgrounds because of the heat (gates open 6 p.m.), Meadowdale Library is open as a cooling center, and the county is asking everyone to ease up on outdoor water use during the drought.