A new AI chatbot - Virtual Assistant Virginia - is now at work on Roanoke’s municipal website.

City Council has two significant decisions ahead: whether to raise the meals tax and to keep school funding level.

City Manager Valmarie Turner began flashing warning signs last month that the city needed to tighten its belt.

The shortfall could affect schools, public transportation and parks.

It’s a rare case for the city to bring to court. In recent years, Roanoke has tried to protect and expand the city’s tree canopy.

The swearing-in capped an intense lobbying campaign to fill the rest of Mayor Joe Cobb’s City Council term.

The lawsuits could shed further light on a drama that gripped Roanoke city hall last year, when claims of a toxic workplace preceded the city manager’s resignation.

The parking garage beside the Amtrak platform has been closed since April, when city officials deemed the structure unsafe.

Roanoke property owners are seeing an average 8 percent increase in their real estate tax bills this year, a historically high but downward-trending assessment.

The city failed to budget enough money for youth programs run by The Foundry, leading to discord and lost revenue, an audit found.

Valmarie Turner, Fairfax’s deputy city manager, becomes Roanoke’s next city manager next month, replacing Bob Cowell.

Members of the Youth Athletics Review Board were caught off guard last month after the city attorney floated a proposal to do away with the recently formed group.

A recent reassignment of duties at the top shows Roanoke’s interim city manager, Lydia Patton, is not content to carry on the status quo.

It wasn’t immediately clear why City Council was considering disbanding the athletics board, or how that would fix a problem it’s seeking to solve.

Other Roanoke developers expressed mixed feelings about Bob Cowell’s departure, with a couple saying it was time the city manager moved on.

The action was a change from a last-minute meeting Friday, when City Council voted to institute a full $20,000 pay bump next year.

Bev Fitzpatrick served three terms on Council beginning in the 1980s and was later executive director of the Virginia Museum of Transportation.

Lydia Pettis Patton will succeed Bob Cowell in an interim capacity over the next four months, Roanoke leaders announced