Today's News

INDEPENDENCE – Following months of workshops and public hearings, Grayson County supervisors approved the 2013-14 budget with no tax increase.
County Administrator Jonathan Sweet presented the final budget to the board last week during a year-end closeout meeting. It includes revenues and expenditures totaling $17.3 million.
Sweet pointed out that all tax levies would stay the same — including real estate, which will remain at 49¢ per $100 valuation.
Supervisors also used the meeting to close out the 2012-13 budget.

Of the many government systems that need overhaul, the federal criminal code ranks among the most bloated.
Congress has created 500 new federal crimes per decade for the last 30 years. From 1980 to 2004, the number of criminal offenses increased by 30 percent.
Many of those new laws junked a long-standing legal principal known as mens rea: for a person to be guilty of a crime, he must have intended to commit one.

HILLSVILLE — All Carroll County Public School employees go through an extensive checklist before starting work to protect the safety of students, according to schools Superintendent Strader Blankenship.
A June 14 incident recently came to light, in which a substitute bus driver got pulled over by police for driving erratically. He was subsequently charged with driving while intoxicated and reckless driving.
This resulted in questions from the public about background checks for school employees, Blankenship told The Gazette.

The annual Galax Firemen’s Carnival begins its festivities on June 24 and continues through June 29 at Felts Park in Galax.
Normally held on the week of July 4, the carnival was pushed back this year due to scheduling conflicts, according to the fire department. “Normally, when a carnival is booked, it is from a previous year with a city or town. We have recently been carnival shopping and these dates are what we got,” department officials explained on the GVFD’s Facebook page.