Potomac Local News

Manassas used to have a newspaper you could hold. Then the presses went quiet. A volunteer crew is trying to put one back in people’s hands. Uriah Kiser sits down with Amalfi Arias, six weeks into resurrecting The Manassas Journal — the name that was, for generations, the record of the city and western Prince William. Kiser learned the business at the old Manassas Journal Messenger. That paper and...

Manassas just lost its mayor months earlier than advertised — and the nameplate on the dais already said Parks. Uriah Kiser sits down with Lynn Forkell Greene, the former councilwoman running again for Manassas City Council on Nov. 3, the morning after Michelle Davis-Younger’s last meeting. The mayor said in February she would leave at year’s end. The city later confirmed she is out Sept. 30 after...

Dessert is over. Then the razors come out. Uriah Kiser sits down with the cast of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts, the Stafford County dinner theater at 95 Riverside Parkway in Fredericksburg. The Sondheim musical thriller runs Sept. 9 through Oct. 25. Christopher Sanders, playing Sweeney for the fourth time and in his fifth Riverside show...

Manassas City School Board member Sara Brescia sued the board she sits on. Last week they settled. No money changed hands. Nobody admitted fault. The investigation order is gone — and she says colleagues had already talked about pulling her daughters out of Baldwin Elementary. Uriah Kiser sits down with Brescia, first elected in 2022 and running at-large again on the November 3 ballot, about how a...

Stafford County is the largest locality in Virginia without a BPOL tax. The Board of Supervisors just scheduled a public hearing to bring it back. On this episode of the Potomac Local News Podcast, Uriah Kiser sits down with two people at the center of the fight: Commissioner of the Revenue Scott Mayausky, who would have to collect the tax, and former supervisor and former Del. Paul Milde, who hel...

Fredericksburg Main Street executive director Chris Allen joins the Potomac Local Podcast. A Downtown Affair is sold out — we talk about what that night on the 900 block of Charles Street actually is, what the tickets fund the rest of the year, and what’s new downtown: storefronts, events, the Garden & Gun Best Main Street win, the street-closure pilot, and the move into the Visitor Center at...

Manassas is about to get a new mayor months earlier than anyone planned. City Councilman Tom Osina wants the job — first as the interim pick, then as the voters’ choice. Mayor Michelle Davis-Younger won a new four-year term in 2024, then announced in February she would leave two years early. The city later confirmed she is out Sept. 30, after her final council meeting Sept. 28. That starts a tight...

Stafford County’s sheriff’s office wrote annual all-expenses-paid Las Vegas trips into a five-year dispatch software contract. Fredericksburg just walked away from a projected $23 million data-center payday. And a Manassas school board fight has now reached a member’s own children. On this Thursday, August 27, 2026 edition of the Potomac Local News Podcast, Uriah Kiser walks through the stories dr...

Support Potomac Local News Become a Member → https://potomaclocal.memberful.com/join A rising senior at Potomac Senior High School is about to become one of the most important new voices covering Northern Virginia schools this fall. Saniaa Purdie joins Potomac Local News as a student intern and will report on both the Prince William County School Board and the Stafford County School Board. In this...

Chaos inside Manassas City Public Schools has nothing to do with educating children and everything to do with politics. School board member Sarah Brescia has filed a lawsuit claiming a majority of the board conducted an illegal electronic and telephonic vote outside public view, in clear violation of Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act. Support Potomac Local News Become a Member → https://potoma...

Ebony Lofton is running for Dumfries Town Council and she’s not mincing words about how Rose Gaming revenue, empty buildings, and everyday quality of life should shape the town’s future. In this Potomac Local News podcast conversation, host Uriah Kiser sits down with the longtime Dumfries resident, former PRTC bus driver, banking professional, and Economic Development Authority treasurer. Lofton w...

Potomac Local is expanding its coverage of the boards that set your tax rates, fund your schools, and decide the future of data centers across Northern Virginia. Meet Emilie McGinnis, the new reporter who will cover both the Prince William Board of County Supervisors and the Stafford County Board of Supervisors starting September 7. In this episode of the Potomac Local News Podcast, host Uriah Kis...

Virginia just wrapped an unusually late primary season, and the results are in. Retired Army Maj. Gen. Bert Mizusawa locked up the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate with about 51.5 percent. In the 7th District, Doug Ollivant dominated with roughly 57 percent. In the 10th, Dave Beckwith ran the table near 72 percent. Low turnout, delayed voting, and big questions about voter fatigue now hang ov...

Virginia primary night delivered clear winners in two key Northern Virginia congressional districts, and Potomac Local News has the full local breakdown. Doug Ollivant secured the Republican nomination in the 7th District after a three-way race, setting up a general-election matchup against Democratic incumbent Eugene Vindman. In the 10th District, retired Air Force Col. Dave Beckwith took the GOP...

Manassas Airport just cleared another federal review hurdle on the path to commercial passenger flights, while a new elementary school prepares to open and a former Stafford sheriff’s deputy faces serious federal charges. In this episode of the Potomac Local News podcast, Uriah Kiser breaks down the latest developments across Northern Virginia and Stafford County. Manassas Regional Airport—now reb...

David Williams enlisted in the Navy in Norfolk, became a Marine Corps infantry officer with two combat tours in Iraq, served as a State Department diplomat, and rose to CIA Chief of Station. Now the combat veteran and intelligence officer is running in Virginia’s August 4 Republican primary for U.S. Senate, arguing the Commonwealth needs someone who can actually beat longtime incumbent Democrat Ma...

Kim Farington deferred her federal retirement after 33 years of service because she says she saw too much fraud and too many inefficiencies she could not fix under existing law. In this Potomac Local News interview, the CPA, cybersecurity and financial-management small-business owner, patent-holding inventor, and wife of a retired Navy captain explains why she is running in the August 4 Republican...

Rick Smithers is not currently a resident of Virginia’s 7th District—but he says he’ll move the day after the primary if voters choose him. In this Potomac Local News interview, the pastor, veteran, construction business owner, and recent public-policy doctoral graduate lays out why he’s running in the Republican primary for the seat that includes Stafford, Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania, Prince Wil...

Manassas City Public Schools just voted 6-1 to leave the door wide open for students to use ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, and every other generative AI tool to complete their homework and turn it in as their own. No explicit ban. No clear language in the Student Code of Conduct. Teachers are left guessing what they can actually enforce. On Tuesday night the Manassas City School Board rejected language th...

Virginia’s 7th Congressional District is one of the tightest races in the country, and Republican primary voters head to the polls on August 4. In this Potomac Local News interview, Kelly Sienkowski sits down with Philip Harding, the businessman, former presidential fellow, and entrepreneur seeking the Republican nomination to take on incumbent Democrat Eugene Vindman in November. Harding, a first...

Residents in Fredericksburg are spooked by a data center in Manassas — and the connection is closer than you think. On July 21, locals packed the Central Rappahannock Regional Library for a community forum titled “Are We the New Data Center Alley?” as massive server farms push south from Loudoun County through Prince William, Stafford, and beyond. Virginia already hosts more than 600 data centers...

Manassas City School Board candidate Marina Dove has spent years posting on Facebook about prayer in public schools, Bible reading, rejecting evolutionary science, and affirming traditional marriage as one man and one woman. Those posts are now front and center as she seeks the Democratic Party’s nomination for one of three open seats this November. In today’s episode, Uriah Kiser breaks down the...

Prince William County residents packed a Nokesville rally Thursday night to push back against Dominion Energy’s proposed 6.5-mile transmission line. The line would link a substation in Nokesville to another near data centers off Hornbaker Road outside Manassas. State Senators Jeremy McPike and Danica Roem, plus Board Chair Deshundra Jefferson, spoke out against it. Locals say they’ve had enough of...

A brand-new parking garage sits between Sentara hospital and Wegmans in Woodbridge. It was sold as a major win for transit and drivers. Two years later, it’s still mostly empty — and nearly impossible to reach on foot or by bike. Community advocate Kevin Parker joins Uriah Kiser on the Potomac Local News Podcast to walk through exactly what he found. Parker wrote about the garage for Greater Great...

The world’s longest-running play is right here in Stafford County. Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap has landed at the Riverside Center for the Performing Arts, bringing its snowstorm, strangers, and shocking murder mystery to Fredericksburg audiences through August 23. Uriah Kiser sat down with two of the stars: Mia Gomez-Montero, making her Riverside debut as Molly Ralston, and longtime Riverside...