The Fredericksburg Economic Development Authority hosted its first-ever developers’ forum under the banner of JumpStart! Fredericksburg. Speakers from around the state told of their successes in redeveloping historic properties into mixed use properties that add to the vitality of their urban communities. Some examples: In a $5 million project, Fairfax Hall, a former girls’ school…

The editorial writers at the Daily Press are sputtering mad about their precious tax increases going down to defeat: You can talk about land use. You can talk about innovation. You can talk about privatization, creativity and reform. But at the end of the day, road improvements require money. Hard money. Unambiguous legal tender. Cash.…

(For those of you with warped minds, that’s an Economic Development plan!) Pat Gottschalk works fast. The Secretary of Commerce and Trade had a year to update Virginia’s strategic plan for economic development, but he cranked it out in eight months. (You can read the plan here.) There are no dramatic departures from the Warner…

While transportation and land use reform crashed and burned in the General Assembly this week, the traveling train wreck called Rail to Dulles lumbers ahead unchecked. As part of a long-term effort to get our arms around the most expensive public works project in Virginia history, I assigned writer Peter Galuszka to describe the major…

While the state Senate blocks meaningful reform on transportation and land use at a state level, the Lynchburg region is taking matters into its own hands. Reports the News & Advance: Region 2000’s Local Government Council called a meeting of public officials … to talk about how the area’s growth plans and transportation plans must…

The General Assembly special session on transportation drove off the cliff yesterday when the state Senate killed the legislative package submitted by the House. Acrimony was widespread as Gov. Timothy M. Kaine joined lawmakers in both houses in pointing fingers of blame. Said Kaine in a press release issued yesterday: After months of delay and…

The House of Delegates has passed a package of 26 bills related to transportation and land use. Three will be held over for study and re-presented in next year’s session. The rest move to the Senate for consideration. It will be interesting to see which bills survive Senate scrutiny. Despite all the hoo-ha reported by…

“Road-funding debate stalls,” proclaimed the Times-Dispatch headline over the article covering the transportation debate in the General Assembly yesterday. That was as fair and balanced as the story got. It was all down-hill from there. After noting that the Democrats had successfully stalled Republicans’ $2.4 billion transportation plan, Michael Hardy and Jeff Schapiro weighed in…

It was quite a sight: During the transportation debate in the House of Delegates yesterday, Democrats waved personal credit cards over their heads to mock Republican proposals to borrow $1.5 billion in order to pay for new road projects. Kaine administration spokesman Kevin Hall dissed the legislative package, telling Hardy/Schapiro with the Richmond Times-Dispatch: I’m…

The House of Delegates is holding firm against unrelenting pressure to raise taxes that would perpetuate Virginia’s antiquated and wasteful transportation system. The House Finance Committee spiked plans to raise taxes locally in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to fund regional road building projects. One plan did survive the legislative buzz saw: a $2.4 billion…

Lawyers for a black high school student who was rejected by a college journalism program filed a racial discrimination lawsuit Tuesday in federal court. The U.S. District Court lawsuit was filed on behalf of Emily Smith, 15, who said she was accepted last spring to the Suburban Journalism Workshop at the University of Richmond. One…

I lifted this chart from an article, “The (Illegal) Immigrant Effect,” in the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank’s “Region Focus” magazine. Surveying economic studies about the econonomic impact of immigration, the article concludes: “Immigrant labor lowers wages for less-skilled native-born Americans, but it also lowers prices for consumers. The biggest economic beneficiaries of immigration are immigrants…

If you expand the Washington Metro system in Northern Virginia, you expand the number of trains that run. If you expand the number of trains, you hire more transit workers. If you hire more workers, you facilitate the growth of the Amalgamated Transit Union, local 689, and entrust the functioning of the Northern Virginia economy…

The House Counties, Cities and Towns Committee decided to defer action on land use legislation championed by House Speaker William J. Howell and other Republicans in favor of studying the proposals. “You’re talking about drastic changes,” said Del. Riley Ingram, R-Hopewell, the committee chairman. According to Chelyen Davis with the Free Lance-Star, Ingram said he’d…

The Family Foundation sent a letter to the No Voters to ask for their definition of marriage. Something I blogged about. If marriage isn’t one man and one woman then say what you want and be honest to the voters. Here is the letter: September 25, 2006 Dear Claire: Very soon, Virginians will have to…