In January of this year, Governor Kaine and State Senator Creigh Deeds announced plans to expand legislation related to the Governor’s green jobs initiative–Renew Virginia–a program launched in December of 2008. Today, Kaine met with members of the Roanoke Clean and Green Business Coalition to make an announcement regarding his Renew Virginia initiative.

Today, at around 12:15, business leaders from across the Commonwealth joined Senator Mark Warner and State Senator Creigh Deeds to announce the formation of a new bipartisan commerce committee to advise and support the Deeds for Virginia campaign–Business Leaders for Deeds. The group will be headed by Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis.

From The Washington Post:

The number of jobs on employers’ payrolls fell by 467,000, the Labor Department said. That is many more jobs than were shed in May and far worse than the 350,000 job losses that economists were forecasting. Job losses peaked in January and had declined every month until June. The steep losses show that even as there are signs that total economic activity may level off or begin growing later this year, the nation’s employers are still pulling back. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, which is based on a separate survey of households, rose to 9.5 percent, from 9.4 percent. While it is now rising at a more measured pace than in the recent past, many economists continue to expect that the rate will surpass 10 percent by fall.

Roanoke’s Fleet Management Division purchased two all-electric vehicles for the Star City’s working fleet: a small pick-up truck with an average speed of 30 mph and a four-door sedan . . . The Virginia Bicycle Federation reports that Governor Kaine will be in Roanoke at Wasena Park around 10 AM tomorrow (Thursday, June 2, 2009) for a bike ride down the Roanoke River Greenway.

Earlier this month, Pop’s in the Grandin Village was the subject of a praise piece in Oxford American–The Southern Magazine of Good Writing. Matthew Vollmer explains the genesis of one of Roanoke’s most beloved homegrown businesses:

In the beginning, Anna, a massage therapist, and her husband, Brandon, a bagpiper for a rockabilly band, dreamed about constructing a sensory-deprivation chamber: a pitch-dark, soundless room, the air maintained at body temperature, to help users reach an alpha state during meditation. Somehow, that idea lost its charm, and another, slightly more extravagant fantasy replaced it: the opening of an old-fashioned ice-cream shop. They began collecting equipment—a 1936 Bastian Blessing soda fountain (because you can’t make an ice-cream soda worth a damn without one), a Kelvinator ice-cream cabinet, a Multimixer, wooden booths, and Formica tables from the ’40s—and scored a prime location in Roanoke’s hip Grandin Village, in the neighborhood’s oldest building, which, once upon a time, had been a library.

Over the next two weeks, SCH will bring you conversations with the directors of the local agencies responsible for maintaining the Region’s basic infrastructure like water, sewer, streets, bridges and stormwater run-off–the systems that serve as the foundation for future growth in the Roanoke Valley. For the first post, we spoke with Mike McEvoy, the Executive Director for Wastewater Services at the Western Virginia Water Authority.

SCH and myScoper.com will give away a $50 gift certificate to The Habitat ReStore to the person or group with the best two-minute idea to reduce poverty in the Roanoke Valley (details inside)

From the Virginia Department of Health and Human Services:

Drive along South Jefferson Street heading to the Hospital District today and you’ll motor past a visible metaphor for the future of the Roanoke Valley.