Bacon's Rebellion

Can You Say “Stacked Deck?”

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by

James A. Bacon
in

Many thanks to Jeremy Hinton, who conveyed to Bacon’s Rebellion the file on the General Assembly website listing the “citizen members” of the Statewide Transportation Analysis and Recommendation Task Force (START). This is the group empowered by Senate Finance Chair John Chichester to develop a transportation action plan for submission to the 2005 General Assembly. Serving with 10 members of the state senate (whose names I will post as soon as I get them), these individuals will have disproportionate influence in shaping the senate’s legislative package next year. They include:

Would you say this group represents a wide diversity of viewpoints on transportation strategy? Or would you say that these individuals were selected for their likely agreement with Sen. Chichester on the necessity of raising taxes to pay for building more roads and rail projects? See my analysis in the comments section — and please, bloggers, add your own knowledge and commentary.

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  1. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Bob Archer, general manager of Blue Ridge Beverage, a major beer, wine and soft drink distributor based in Salem, Va. Let’s see. I’ll bet his company owns and operates a lot of trucks. My guess: He’s all in favor of road improvements that will help his trucks move more efficiently. Nothing wrong with economic efficiency–that’s a good thing. But I think it’s unlikely that Archer will challenge Chichester on the necessity of raising taxes — as long as someone else is paying the taxes. I doubt he’ll be supporting an extra sales tax on the sale of wine and beer to help pay for new roads.

    Oh, and let’s not forget that he was 2004 Chairman of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, which has played a lead role in ginning up support from the business community in favor of raising taxes.

  2. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    See my comments on the Australian method of using a system something like grand jury selection for public hearings and committees to avoid stacking the deck like this.

    This does look like a stacked deck, but you expect successful people to be the ones most involved, I think I don’t have a clear opinion yet, but hese guys can make all the recommendations they want, if there is no money….

  3. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Ben J. Davenport, Jr., an official with First Piedmont Corporation, a full-service, industrial waste-hauling corporation active in Southside. First Piedmont owns a landfill in Danville. Hmmm… Another company that uses a lot of trucks. Do I detect a pattern here?

    Also, note that Davenport is one of three representatives of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce serving on the task force.

  4. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    Hmmm. Chamber of commerce people are certainly pro-road tax. I looked up the National Capital Planning Commission and liked what I saw:

    “The National Capital Planning Commission provides overall planning guidance for federal land and buildings in the National Capital Region, which includes the District of Columbia; Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties in Maryland; and Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William Counties in Virginia, including the cities and towns located within the geographic area bounded by these counties. Through its planning policies and review of development proposals, the Commission seeks to protect and enhance the extraordinary historical, cultural, and natural resources of the nation’s capital.”

    Very focused on Historic Preservation. And I’d say that in Washington, DC they’ve done a great job in the past few years.

  5. Laszlo Avatar
    Laszlo

    Folks,

    If you want to know about Virginia transportation, you can save a lot of time and effort if you would just give the 65th Governor of Virginia a call.

    He knows.

  6. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    Hmmm. Robert Calhoun’s served on the WMATA board.

    I’d argue that the chamber of commerce represents a pretty wide range of business interests…

  7. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Gerald P, McCarthy, executive director of the Virginia Environmental Foundation. I know Jerry pretty well, and I would describe him as someone who will speak with integrity and independence. Jerry is very knowledgeable about transportation issues, and he’s the closest thing to representing an environmental perspective on the task force. But Jerry also is arguably the most middle-of-the-road, establishment environmentalist who could have been selected: He runs the environmental foundation endowed by Allied Chemical after the Kepone fiasco. He sees his role as a mediator on environmental issues, not an environmental activist. Although widely known and well respected, Jerry does not represent any particular constituency.

    The environmental community is overwhelmingly opposed to building more roads (though a lot of them favor rail and mass transit). But no one from, say, the Virginia Conservation Network, serves on the task force.

  8. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Pierce R. Homer, the Secretary of Transportation. Homer replaced Whitt Clement, who resigned recently to work for Hunton & Williams. Clement would have represented a different viewpoint. He championed a number of experimental pilot projects on intelligent transportation systems and land use planning. I have no idea whether or not Homer will push the same outside-the-box thinking. Does anyone know him? Can anyone comment?

    Needless to say, it’s mandatory for this task force to have at least one representative of the Warner administration. Given the lame duck status of the administration, however, I question whether Homer’s opinions will be given any special weight.

  9. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    If they invite the Virginia Conservation network, don’t you think they’ll just put their heels down and bring the whole thing to a screeching halt? A mediator sounds great to me! Build roads and use context sensitive design…it’s the best compromise I’ve ever heard.

  10. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Deborah K. Stearns, managing director of Advantis Real Estate’s Norfolk office. Advantis is one of the largest commercial real estate brokers and office managers in the state. I know Deborah from back in my Virginia Business days, and I know her to be a very competent business woman. I don’t have any insight into her current transportation politics, however.

  11. Jeremy Hinton Avatar
    Jeremy Hinton

    Deborah is also on the current board of directors for the VA port authority AFAIK, so ingress/egress from the ports (third hr crossing anyone?) will probably be well represented.

  12. Barnie Day Avatar
    Barnie Day

    Jim, what would you have the Senator do? Put people on he doesn’t want? The Australian system? To give us guidance on transportation? That country, a large part of which is simply referred to as ‘out-back?’ The system of perfect representation, Ray, would give us a representative sampling of drug addicts, wife beaters and folks who can’t read or write! Please! Give me a ‘stacked deck’ any day.

  13. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Margaret E.G. Vanderhye, identified as a former member of the National Capital Planning Commission. It’s not clear what she did there. She also served, it seems, as a governor’s appointee to the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority. I can’t find out much else about her from a quickie Google search. It would be a bonus if she brings some professional planning background. I don’t have enough information to know if she is predisposed to favor major road and rail projects as an approach to dealing with traffic congestion.

  14. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Robert L. Calhoun, an attorney with Redmon, Peyton & Braswell, an Alexandria law firm. From his website: “His principal areas of practice are representing individuals, companies and organizations before Federal, state and local government agencies in the areas of communications, zoning and other land use matters and transportation. Mr. Calhoun also represents various interests before the Virginia General Assembly, primarily in the areas of transportation, communications and corrections.

    “Mr. Calhoun a member of the Virginia State Senate from 1989 to 1995 and the Alexandria City Council from 1976-82 and 1985-88. He has also been a member of the Board of Directors of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission and the National Capital Transportation Planning Board. He is currently a Director of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.”

    Clearly, Mr. Calhoun brings an in-depth knowledge of transportation issues to the task force. But who are his clients? What interests does he represent? That I don’t know at this point. However, you could color me surprised if it turns out that he represents citizen and environmental groups, as opposed to industry clients with a vested interest in transportation funding issues.

  15. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Susan Dewey; Executive Director, VA Housing & Development Authority. Interesting choice to select as a “citizens member.” I could understand appointing her to a task force to study housing, but not transportation.

  16. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Hugh Keogh, president & CEO, Virginia Chamber of Commerce. Hugh is a wonderful guy. We worked closely on a number of projects back in my Virginia Business days. All I can say is that he’s firmly committed to funding more road and rail projects. He’s one of Chichester’s key allies in the business community.

  17. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Wiley F. Mitchell, Jr., attorney for Willcox & Savage in Norfolk. Former member of the state senate, now serving as counsel to Norfolk Southern. In other words, he’s another member with strong ties to the transportation industry.

    That’s it, I’ve run out of time. The wife is calling! I’ll try to return later with comments on Bob Templin, Tim Robertson and the others.

  18. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Barnie, What would I have the Senator do? It depends on what my goals were. If my goal is to explore a wide range of options for addressing traffic congestion and other transportation issues in Virginia, I would select people with a wide variety of perspectives, many of whom I have quoted in previous columns, and none of whom I see in this group. Not just environmentalists and land use experts, but industry executives associated with, say, Intelligent Transportation Systems.

    If my goal is not to explore alternative transportation strategies, but rather to figure out how to justify raising taxes in order to finance road and rail projects that I’ve already decided we need, then I would have selected a group much like Mr. Chichester has done.

    Bottom line: This group was hand picked to help Chichester justify raising taxes to fund more transportation projects. Nothing more, nothing less.

  19. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    Jim, there are no alternat transportation strategies anywhere that have demonstrated a capacity to meet mor than 11% of the demand. If we pull off a major marketing coup, we might double that. If we do that THEN your ideas might get some more traction. How much of our budget do you think we can spend to double a maybe in the face of known shortfalls in the face of a given?

    I like alternate strategies, too, but we need some proof of concept that does not yet exist.

  20. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    Barnie, Nice ripost, and a good comment, I’m just slinging ideas for the purpose of brainstorming.

    In Virginia, wife beaters and drug addicts would probably be ineligible to vote, and thus would not be selected, so your comment is a little elitist.

    I started my comment with the idea that it includes mostly successful people, which is what you imply we should want. On the other hand, it is mostly the intelligentsia that have got us in this mess, maybe some truck driver and farmer common-sense perspective is not all bad.

  21. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    Actually, I think the way that Australian system works is this. A fairly large pool of registered voters is selected at random. They are supplied an issues paper prepared by staff and invited to participate in the public discussion, or submit written comments. Those that actually show up get a small stipend, however, just as here, most can’t be bothered.

    Still it could beat a stacked deck or a packed audience, which is what we get.

  22. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Pierce Homer is the former deputy County Executive of Prince William County. He worked with Sean Connaughton (lt. gov. candidate for a few years). Pierce was with PWC from about the mid/late 80s through about 2002. He then become under-secretary of transportation and was recently promoted to Secy of Transportation.

    I can say that while he worked with/under Board Chair Kathy Seefeldt, there wasn’t a tax or development he didn’t like. However, I can’t say if this was *his* position, or a position necessitated by the fear of god one got with Kathy Seefeldt as chair. It was her way or hit the bricks buddy, with a bit of personal destruction and humiliation along for the ride. When Seefeldt was chair, there were NO dissenting opinions, ever. It was simply not allowed.

  23. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Ha! Small typo in my anony post at 11:30 pm. My paren is in the wrong place – leaving the impression that Connaughton has been a lt. gov. candidate for a few years! (Hmmm, maybe he has been?) I meant that Pierce worked with Connaughton for a few years!

  24. Barnie Day Avatar
    Barnie Day

    Ray, sorry. You’re right, the riposte was a little smart-mouthed, perhaps. It is, sir, the Devil in me. I got off to a bad start on this one with the accusatory nature of the headline–as if all decks, public and private, aren’t stacked. So this one is stacked with Chichester’s set of values, biases, prejudices, etc. Does that make it more suspect or less legitimate than one stacked with any other set? Say, Jim’s? Yours? Mine? Anybody’s? I think not. The problem Jim really has, I believe, is not that the deck is stacked, but by whom. Chichester stacks Chichester’s decks. Who is shocked by that? You see, these commissions, and they’re a dime a dozen, have one real purpose–and only one: ‘cover’, as in political cover for doing what everyone who has even a passing acquaintance with reality knows must be done–in this case raising additional revenue. I mean no denigration at all. This a necessary and important role. These commmision members, insulated from the electorate, will take the heat for this necessity. That is their purpose. They have no other. I hate to be so blunt about it, but that is the truth, and in the crevices of thir hearts all the real players know it–as they do, and have, in other such commission arrangements, from Warren to Wilder–before, since, and hence. The trick in putting these things together, and folks who’ve been around the block as many times as Chicherter has are good it, is to find willing folks who have predispositions, who have strength of belief and conviction such that it will sustain them when the heat comes. By that measure, the Senator has seated himself a panel that some would call “blue ribbon.” In judging this commission–or any other–at least judge it on what really matters to the process unfolding here–judge it on its heat capacity. Use that yardstick on this one and you’ll have some measure of Chichester’s genius. He doesn’t need anyone to explain transportation to him. Politically, he’s a savvy aborigine, building himself a heat shield. He’s been across this sun-blasted plain before.

  25. Phil Rodokanakis Avatar
    Phil Rodokanakis

    Pardon the ignorance, but what the heck does the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee have to do with developing transportation policy and appointing task forces? Has Chichester taken over the governorship? Why are we bothering with gubernatorial elections, if Commissar Chichester plans on governing the Commonwealth single-handedly?

    And has anyone heard from the inconsequential Speaker of the House? I thought he was supposed to have come up with his own working group to take care of all our needs.

  26. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    This is the press release on the meeting of May 19 – the senators on the committee can be found at the bottom. It appears to be a Senate Task Force and is a joint effort by the Transportation and Finance committees.

    Advisory to the Media
    May 19, 2005

    Senator John Chichester, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, today announced that the Senate Finance and Transportation Committees have formed a bipartisan work group that will look at transportation needs for the 21st Century.

    The Statewide Transportation Analysis and Recommendation Task Force, (START) will consist of ten members of the Senate and 15 citizens from across the Commonwealth. Senator Charles Hawkins will coordinate the effort to determine what a modern transportation system should look like and how it can best be achieved. A series of work sessions will focus on transportation needs, state and local policy reform, and funding strategies. From this effort, legislative and budget proposals will be introduced in the 2006 Session.

    Senator Chichester made the announcement following a presentation by Transportation Commissioner Philip A. Shucet, in which it was reported that by the year 2018, virtually all of Virginia’s transportation revenues will be needed for road
    maintenance, leaving nothing for construction.

    Senator Chichester observed that the first step is to decide how to make the transportation system responsive to needs of a 21st century economy, and then to put that system on firm footing.
    In warning that the now healthy general fund cannot be relied on as a long-term source of funding for transportation, he said,
    “We can throw a general fund bone to transportation every now and then. But, what does that accomplish? In my view, it accomplishes nothing. The amount that we can bleed from the general fund at any point in time won’t make a dent in our transportation problem. And it encourages a dependency that can’t be sustained.
    Between federal deficit reduction and the once-every decade economic downturn, the general fund will be tightening its belt about the time that our transportation
    construction program goes belly-up.
    When that happens, transportation should not be competing with education and health care.”

    Senator Charles Hawkins added,
    “Transportation is the backbone of our economy. We cannot maintain a
    competitive advantage unless we get smarter about the way we move people and goods across the Commonwealth. An efficient transportation system is critical to the economic future of every region of this Commonwealth. Southside and other less populous areas will never reach their economic potential unless we remove the barriers to commerce that exist in our current system . . . and if the Golden Crescent, which keeps the state ‘flying high’ begins
    to choke out, there will be a cascading effect that spreads all across this Commonwealth, as the revenues which support cross-cutting programs falter.”

    Senator Marty Williams, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, was unable to attend the meeting, but he observed earlier that the problem is not just one of funding. “It does no good to pay for something if that something isn’t what you need. We
    have to take a hard look at transportation planning, how local decision-making affects the
    system, VDOT operations, and a whole host of other issues.
    Transportation is not a nut that will be cracked in a single committee of the General Assembly. That’s why I’m very pleased that we have members involved who sit
    on several legislative committees ranging from Finance to transportation to Local
    Government.”

    In closing, Senator Chichester said, “I know that the House of Delegates is undertaking similar analyses and hope that we can compare notes along the way.”
    In addition to Senators Chichester, Hawkins and Williams, legislative members include: Senators William Wampler, John Watkins, William Mims, Frank Wagner, Richard Saslaw, Edward Houck, and Mary Margaret Whipple.
    A list of citizen members and meeting dates is attached.

  27. Barnie Day Avatar
    Barnie Day

    In the House, all the money is raised by one committee, but spent by another. On the Senate side, the same committee–Senate Finance–does both, thus the chairman has enormous influence, structurally speaking. Not a nickel is spent without his blessing. That’s a lot of blessings when you contemplate a $60 BILLION 2-year budget. Who will challenge the man through whose hands must pass every cent spent in every district? Chichester learned the sheer power of the post at the knee of Hunter Andrews,of Hampton, who learned at the knee of Ed Willey, a drugstore owner in the Ginter Park section of Richmond, who was elevated in 1952 and became the Ghengis Khan of Finance chairmen, at least over the last hundred years or so. And who is today at Chichester’s knee? William Wampler.

  28. Laszlo Avatar
    Laszlo

    I know and have worked with Keogh, Mitchell, Davenport and Templin. Solid leaders all. You all should be glad to have them working on Virginia’s tranportation future. I rather it be in their hands than with some of you.

  29. Will Vehrs Avatar
    Will Vehrs

    Barnie, I appreciate your historical and operational perspective on “blue ribbon commissions.” I totally agree that they are there to provide “cover,” but I disagree that their role is to absorb heat. Because members are upstanding citizens with “real” jobs, it seems impertinent to criticize them for their volunteer work. I haven’t seen too many commission members take “heat” in the press.

    In this case, Chichester will guide the group to his recommendation and he’ll take the “heat,” although I don’t think he’ll even take out his handkerchief.

    I wish Jim’s type of commission could be constituted, but it would never come up with a plan that had consensus.

    Chichester has the power. Let him propose a plan and see if he can shepherd it through. Let’s give him the credit if it works or the approbation if it fails. It’s about time Virginia followed somebody’s plan to the letter and held somebody accountable.

  30. Barnie Day Avatar
    Barnie Day

    Well said, Will. The most recent, and best example of one of these things that slipped from public consciousness was the Wilder Commission. It had some success, maybe a 50-50 proposition, but some of the recommendations, like privitizing state liquor stores and eliminating unnecessary boards like the Compensation Board (which, by the way, I was appointed chairman of until I got into a little scuffle with the governor over the columns I write)still await implementation, and the savings thereof.

  31. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Wonder why he did not put Stosch, Stolle or Norment on his commission. Are they off the reservation on the need for a transportation tax hike?

    And Susan Dewey, in addition to her title, is also the sister to Congressman Randy Forbes.

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