Gov. Bob McDonnell called for a quick end to the ongoing chaos following the ousting of President Teresa Sullivan, saying the “future direction of leadership has got to be resolved immediately.”
“This needs to be brought to closure,” McDonnell said in Lynchburg Friday while addressing the annual Virginia Boys State gathering at Liberty University.
“We need finality," McDonnell said. "We need to have settlement on the campus, and the future direction of leadership has got to be resolved immediately. I’ll have more to say about that later today.”
* Also today, the newly tapped interim UVA President Carl Zeithaml said he would suspend negotiations with the board about taking over the top post at the University and will return to his duties as dean of the McIntire School of Commerce.
"Clearly, we agree that the University and its reputation have been damaged these past 13 days, but that together we can mend the harm done and move our great University forward. Trust, one of our core institutional values, has been compromised.
There is an enormous groundswell of support for Terry Sullivan’s reinstatement as our president, and I understand that the Board will meet next week to consider this possibility. As a result, I am suspending any further negotiations with the Board regarding my status as interim president, as well as any activities associated with this role. In the meantime, I will return my focus to the McIntire School.
Trust cannot be restored in our community until the President Sullivan’s status is clarified and ultimately resolved."
* The Washington Post uncovers a few interesting relationships between UVA Rector Helen Dragas and some prominent Virginia politicians.
Among them:
The husband of University of Virginia’s Rector Helen Dragas is a partner in a law firm with Vincent Mastrocco, another member of the Board of Visitors.
Dragas, under fire for orchestrating the ouster of president Teresa Sullivan, kept Mastrocco in the dark about the plans to remove the president until days before the June 10 announcement, according to former board members and a university official with knowledge of the situation but who was not authorized to speak publicly....
Dragas’s husband, Lewis Webb, works at Kaufman and Conoles, a medium-sized law firm based in Hampton Roads -- the very same firm where Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment (R-James City) is a partner.
* D.C. Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, who replaced Harry Thomas Jr. as Ward 5 councilmember in May, failed to file campaign finance reports with city officials by legal deadline, according to the Washington Post.
Two weeks after the deadline, the city has yet to receive his reports and the matter has since been referred to the Office of Campaign Finance’s lawyers for enforcement.
* Here’s the latest attack ad against Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Tim Kaine from the conservative Americans for Prosperity, the group funded by the Koch Brothers.
