Category: Federal issues
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Atlantic Park Part 10: Virginia Small Business Financing Authority
by James C. Sherlock On September 13, 2022, a regular meeting was held of the board of the Virginia Small Business Financing Authority (VSBFA). That board has sweeping responsibilities only one of which is the bond program. From its 501(c)3 Tax-Exempt Bond Program. On the agenda of that meeting was authorization of bonds for North Carolina’s…
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Atlantic Park Part 8: Surf Park Muni Bonds Add to Project Risk
By James C. Sherlock The surf park jumps right out at you. It is meant to. It will be the first surf pool in the mid-Atlantic region. The other components of Virginia Beach’s Atlantic Park will depend upon it to create buzz and draw visitors. A developer group led by Venture Realty Group initially planned…
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Atlantic Park Part 7: The Quest for Surf Park Financing
Commentary by James C. Sherlock A last-minute search for surf park financing delayed project construction for a year. Neither bankers nor the City of Virginia Beach wanted any part of it. The developer missed a funding deadline. The city forgave it, but the pressure was on. So, with city backing: The journey was so complex…
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Atlantic Park Part 4: Seven Years of Negotiations
by James C. Sherlock Atlantic Park should prove a first-rate attraction when it opens next May. The design is attractive, quality should be good, and the surf park will be unique in the mid-Atlantic, at least for a while. But it has taken what seems like forever to get the deal done, and taxpayers got…
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Atlantic Park Part 3: The Deal of the Century
By James C. Sherlock Updated September 18, 2024 at 10:07 AM and 3:27 PM Atlantic Park is due to open on nearly 13 acres of city land near the Virginia Beach oceanfront in May of 2025. The new entertainment district is the largest public-private partnership project in the history of the Commonwealth’s biggest city. It…
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Youngkin Denies Virginia Taxpayers Access to Free Tax Services
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The 2022 federal Inflation Reduction Act directed the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to prepare for Congress a report on “a potential IRS-run free direct e-file tax return system (Direct File).” After delivering the report to Congress, the IRS proceeded to develop a pilot e-file tax return system and made it available to…
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Virginia Risks Running Out of Other People’s Power
By Steve Haner An electricity drought is looming, not only for Virginia but also for much of the United States, if the political hostility toward the most reliable forms of electricity generation is not reversed. Warnings that wind and solar power alone will not be sufficient resonated like a drumbeat from the podium of a…
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Congress Values Names More Than Housing for Service Members
by Donald Smith “Removing the last vestiges of Confederate history from the U.S. military, including renaming nine Army posts, will cost more than $62 million, a congressional commission said Tuesday.” That quote is from Alex Horton’s Washington Post article on the recommendations of the Naming Commission, dated September 13th, 2022. “For the base names,” wrote Horton, “the changes will…
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Five Far-Left Virginia Democrats Vote Not to Deport Illegals with DUIs
by Kerry Dougherty If you hobnob with prominent Democrats and find yourself in the company of any of the following Virginia Congress members — Bobby Scott of Newport News, Gerald Connolly of Fairfax, Jennifer McClellan of Richmond, Jennifer Wexton of Leesburg or Don Beyer of Alexandria — invite them to take a drive with you…
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The Virginia State Budget and the Rising Costs of Registered Nurses
by James C. Sherlock I was asked yesterday by a reader about the relationship between nursing homes, rising registered nurse salaries and the new Virginia budget agreement. Good questions. Virginia’s workforce includes nearly 70,000 registered nurses. The state pays its workers, but it also pays its Medicaid share for private sector nurses. Pay for private…
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Predatory Virginia Nursing Home Owners
by James C. Sherlock Merriam Webster: Pred*a*tor: (noun) one who injures or exploits others for personal gain or profit. The most medically vulnerable of us reside in skilled nursing facilities (SNF). Nobody plans to be there, but that is where about thirty thousand Virginians find themselves at any one time. People who are moved from hospitals…
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Virginia Nursing Home Regulations and Inspections – A Strategic Improvement Recommendation
By James C. Sherlock Those who read this blog know that Virginia has far more than its share of bad nursing homes. They just do not know what can or should be done about it. This third in a current series on Virginia nursing homes will take on a problem that is self-inflicted – the…
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UVa’s Undergraduate Female/Male Demographics vs. Diversity, Equity and Federal Law
by James C. Sherlock The University of Virginia measures its diversity efforts by statistics. We’ll hold them to their own standards. That seems only equitable. President Ryan has said that the demographic composition of students is easy to measure. The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion office, proving him right, proudly displays a Diversity Dashboard. All eyes,…
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Virginia Democrats in the House of Representatives Vote Against Their Own Daughters
by James C. Sherlock Every Virginia Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives voted against a bill to amend Title IX to prohibit biological boys and men from competing against biological girls and women in K-12 and college sports. Voting nay: Donald Beyer, Gerald Connolly, Jennifer McClellan, Bobby Scott, Abigail Spanberger and Jennifer Wexton.…
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It’s a Cemetery, for Crying Out Loud!
by Donald Smith Apparently, it is the will of the United States Congress that, in the interests of sensitivity and inclusiveness, we go into our cemeteries, and then search for and remove items that might offend someone who’s not related by blood or heritage to anyone buried there. The Congressional Naming Commission (CNC) has recommended…