Welcome to Notes from the Square, a weekly roundup of state politics and policy news. Each Friday, we bring you updates on the movers and shakers in Virginia politics as well as the legislation they’re supporting or opposing — with a Southwest and Southside Virginia focus.
Got a tip or story idea? Email me at elizabeth@cardinalnews.org.
New Tobacco Commission nonprofit is designed to help localities, organizations apply for grants
The Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission met in Floyd in mid-May to adopt a budget and approve 38 funding requests. Among those dozens of requests was one to create the Foundation for Southern and Southwest Virginia, a new 501(c)(3) launched with the goal of helping localities and organizations obtain project funding from federal and state grant programs.
That foundation was created as a nonprofit to work alongside the tobacco commission in its effort to gain more funding for community development projects in Virginia’s Southside and Southwest regions.
“The commission has wanted to set up a foundation for a long time,” said Jordan Butler, the foundation’s CEO. It was an effort in the making since 2024.
The commission will help launch the new foundation through a $400,000 grant to fund operations during its first three years. The foundation will be completely independent of the commission, though the commission is its sole funder at the moment, Butler said.
The commission learned, through outreach in Southwest and Southside, that the biggest barrier to progress faced by localities and organizations in seeking government grant money was a lack of capacity, Butler said. The overall goal of the new nonprofit foundation is to help those localities and organizations in the grant application process as they seek federal, state or private philanthropic funding — something the commission can’t do as a political entity.
“We’ve got communities with great ideas, potentially great projects that just are struggling to have the sheer people power to get the projects off the ground or apply for various federal or state grants,” he said.
“Some federal funding programs prefer that the applicant for dollars be a nonprofit or a local government, so of course that wouldn’t be the commission. A lot of the private foundations are not particularly interested in funding what they view as government programs, but they will give to another nonprofit so there’s opportunity there that just wouldn’t exist for the commission itself,” he added.
The Tobacco Commission is a 28-member body created by the 1999 General Assembly. Its goal is to promote economic growth and development in tobacco-dependent communities, using proceeds of the national tobacco settlement. To date, the commission has awarded over 2,000 grants totaling more than $1.1 billion across the tobacco region of the commonwealth.
Governor names new board appointees
Gov. Abigail Spanberger named dozens of new members to state boards on Friday. Among them were eight from the Southwest and Southside regions of the commonwealth. Spanberger said in a statement that the appointments “reflect the depth of talent and dedication that exists across our Commonwealth.”
“Each of these leaders shares my commitment to public service and finding solutions that deliver for communities in every region of Virginia. I know they will strengthen the boards and commissions they are joining,” she added.
Here are the eight Virginians who hail from Cardinal Country, and the boards they were appointed to:
- Manufactured Housing Board: Jesse Scott Yates of Blairs, owner, Yates Home Sales.
- African American Advisory Board: Michael Hickman of Pulaski, retired public school educator, Pulaski County Public Schools.
- Asian Advisory Board: Nina Ha of Christiansburg, director APIDA + Center, Virginia Tech; Sarvadaman “Sunny” Shah of Roanoke, president, Shiva Hospitality LLC.
- Fair Housing Board: Bishop James Coleman of Lynchburg, senior pastor of Providence Transformation Church International.
- Criminal Justice Services Board: Shannon Dale Goad of Hillsville, chief of police, town of Hillsville.
- Military Advisory Council: Jack Dando of Abingdon, survey analyst, LMI.
- Board of Veterans Services: Brandy Disbennett-Albrecht of Rocky Mount, appellate attorney, National Veterans Legal Services Program.
A state budget update
The state Senate will return to Richmond on June 22 to convene the 2026 special session, likely to tackle the biennial budget. The House of Delegates had not yet been called to return to the capitol as of Thursday afternoon.
The General Assembly is about one month out from the deadline to come to an agreement over its spending priorities. That deadline is 11:59 p.m. June 30, when spending for the current biennium is set to expire. Leaders in the legislature have said that there will be a budget before that deadline, but not much else.
