Category: Infrastructure
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Petersburg Seeks State Funding for Projects Linked to Public Health and the Appomattox River
by James C. Sherlock While all of the attention in the state press has been on Petersburg’s proposed casino, the estimable Bill Atkinson of the Petersburg Progress-Index provided insight into other Petersburg requests to the General Assembly for budget amendments. Badly needed infrastructure projects and a tourism initiative are each tied to the health of…
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Push to Return Federal Workers to Offices – Monsoon or Squall in Northern Virginia
By James C. Sherlock The federal government has for nearly three years been paying very expensive leases for D.C area office buildings that are virtually empty. COVID emergency. Or was. Now it is a battle between the comfort of federal employees with working from wherever they can get a good network connection vs. actually showing…
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Virginia Community Schools Redefined – Hubs for Government and Not-for-Profit Services in Inner Cities – Part 1 – the Current Framework
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in Attendance, Charity, Philanthropy, Nonprofits, Children and Families, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Culture wars, Discipline and Disorder, Education (K-12), Efficiency in Government, General Assembly, Health Care, Infrastructure, LGBQT, Mental illness and substance abuse, Political Influence, Poverty & income gap, Public safety & health, Social Services and Entitlements, Threat Assessmentby James C. Sherlock I believe a major approach to address both education and health care in Virginia’s inner cities is available if we will define it right and use it right. Community schools. One issue. Virginia’s official version of community schools, the Virginia Community School Framework, (the Framework) is fatally flawed. The approach successful elsewhere…
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The Box and the Snowball
by Joe Fitzgerald There’s a box, and there’s a snowball. The box is the support of the Bluestone Town Center. It is a well-constructed but beautifully decorated box, built on strong buzzwords. Affordable Housing, and Climate Change, and Dense Development are the shiny wrapping on this gift. The snowball of opposition rolling toward City Hall…
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McKinsey & Company Has You Covered
by James C. Sherlock Ever feel not only disconnected from, but ignored by central planners? Do you run a shoe store in Sterling or work for a hospital in Richmond? Use natural gas in your home or work? Teach in a public school in Wise County? Drive a gas-or diesel-powered vehicle? In other words, do…
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Homelessness in Petersburg – Part 2
by James C. Sherlock I wrote yesterday about the excellent investigative reporting by the Progress-Index about the knock-on effects of the renewal of fire and building code enforcement in Petersburg. My position is that Petersburg must enforce its codes for public safety and the livability of the city. But I also recognize the need to provide…
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Petersburg Resumes Important Actions Against City Code Violators — Homeless Needs Increase
by James C. Sherlock Sometimes absolutely necessary actions have more than one outcome. Such is the case in Petersburg. Joyce Chu of Petersburg’s indispensable Progress- Index last evening initiated a multi-part series on the impacts of the city’s closure due to safety violations of two motels used by otherwise homeless people. Her first article makes…
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Sinking the Newest Sea Level Rise Exaggerations
by Steve Haner So, let me get this straight. If we willingly keep paying the carbon tax on our electric bills, then thousands of parcels of prime Virginia waterfront won’t slip beneath the waves? Was that the point of these parallel prophecies of doom in the September 12 Richmond Times-Dispatch and Virginia Mercury?
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“Richmond Real” and the City’s Limited Pool Hours for Kids
by James C. Sherlock On June 9, the Richmond Times Dispatch (RTD) offered a story on Mayor Stoney’s new slogan for the City of Richmond: “Richmond Real.” The RTD piece offered a positive account of the new marketing slogan devised under what Richmond Free Press (RFP) has called a “secretive” project led by the West…
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$93 Million for Virginia Trails
The Bacon Family has just returned from a nine-day hiking trip to Montana. We were not surprised that the trails at Glacier National Park, with its rivers and lakes and snow-capped peaks, were world-class spectacular. But we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the trails around Missoula, where we enjoyed two days of walking…
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America’s Petroleum Refining Capacity in the News – What is Going On?
By James C. Sherlock This is a note about perhaps the highest profile national inflation issue, the price of gasoline and diesel. The President is demanding more supply from U.S. refineries. Headlines like this one blare at us today: Biden threatens oil companies with ’emergency powers’ if they don’t boost supply amid inflation spike. The…
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Commonwealth Set for Major Broadband Expansion
by Dick Hall-Sizemore One of the issues underlined by the pandemic was the need for all areas of the state to have access to broadband internet. Without access to broadband, kids (and adults) in rural areas cannot take advantage of courses offered online. To the extent that more people will be working remotely, rural areas…
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The Defense Production Act as a Political Tool to Boost Solar Farms
by James C. Sherlock We have had multiple discussions, good ones, on the issues surrounding solar farms in Virginia. Jim Bacon wrote an excellent column about it in February of 2021 titled “The Political Economy of Solar Farms.” It was good then and prescient as of yesterday. He wrote another one two days earlier. From that…
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Home Price Volatility and Virginia Property Taxes
by James C. Sherlock Housing prices have more than doubled since 2012, reflecting shortages of supply and the resulting speculation. The increasing slope of those curves above is not comforting. Prices have soared over 20% in a year. Mortgage rates are up. What could possibly happen next? Most can figure that out. But this article is…
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Storm-Related Flood Mitigation – A Louisiana Example for Virginia
by James C. Sherlock I have worked for at least ten years — many of those with now-Attorney General Miyares when he was my delegate — to get Virginia to step up to the Louisiana model for flood control. Louisiana. The Louisiana model is a state-federal partnership in which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers…