Bacon's Rebellion

The Mother of all Wonk Fests

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by

James A. Bacon
in

I’m getting pumped about the Public-Private Partnership Forum, scheduled for Dec. 16-17. We’ve nailed down an incredible roster of participants. I’ll be moderating a really cool panel, “Alternatives for Financing Transportation and Community Development.” The panel will explore the potential for public-private partnerships to help build infrastructure by raising private capital that cash-strapped state and local governments cannot provide through traditional revenue sources.

Starting with the names you’re most likely familiar with, the panel will include:

Whitt Clement, former Secretary of Transportation, now a partner at Hunton & Williams.
Sean Connaughton, chairman, Prince William County Board of Supervisors, one of the fastest-growing and most infrastructurally challenged counties in the Commonwealth.
Steve Haner, a Bacon’s Rebellion contributor, who will be representing Virginia Citizens for Better Transportation, an industry-sponsored group lobbying for transportation solutions.

And then some really interesting voices you may never have heard of…

Thomas Pelnik (or designee), with the Virginia Department of Transportation’s Innovative Project Delivery Team, the group charged with soliciting and analyzing public-private transportation partnership proposals.
Gabriel Roth, a transportation economist with the Independent Institute and outspoken advocate of highway privatization.
Chris Walker, a Northern Virginia real estate developer with extensive holdings in the Dulles corridor, and a proponent of user-financed infrastructure and competitive markets.
Rich Herlich, CEO of VMS, Inc., the company that privatized highway asset management here in Virginia, and a partner in two public-private partnership proposals to build HOT lanes in Northern Virginia.

What a phenomenal line-up of speakers. It’s a shame we get only two hours! And that’s just one session! For anyone interested in how Virginia is going to pay for its growing infrastructure needs, this will be one of the most stimulating conferences of the year.

Click here to see an updated version of the program. Click here to visit the conference home page and access registration information.

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9 responses to “The Mother of all Wonk Fests”

  1. subpatre Avatar
    subpatre

    Just outta curiousity, what’s this going to offer for small projects? By ‘small’, I mean very small; like under $1 million.

    My impression of the PPPs was there’s a relatively steep entry tax in the way of review fees and performance bond.

  2. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Subpatre, public-private partnerships do have a lot of legal and financial overhead, so they are not suitable for small projects. I doubt you’ll see any for projects less than $15 million to $20 million in size.

  3. Steve Haner Avatar
    Steve Haner

    $15-20 million? That’s a couple of miles of widening on Hull Street. Add a zero.

  4. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    $15 to $20 million is the smallest we can expect to see. There have been some Community Development Act public-private partnerships of that size — mainly for installing infrastructure for new developments. But you’re right, Steve, that public-private partnerships for transportation projects will be $100 million and up.

  5. republitarian Avatar
    republitarian

    Jim, What Is Prince Williams growth rate?

  6. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    PW poplation growth is 4.5% and Job growth is 5.1%. Loudoun is 5.2%, tied with Clarke County, Nev. (Las Vegas) for the fastest growth rate in the nation.

    The District had 0.4% fewer jobs. These are 2003 numbers and growth has been faster and slower in these counties respectively.

    Some experts still claim that job growth in the outlying areas is either a myth or a mistake. However, it seems to me that we should make plans for what we have and not what we would like to believe.

    That is not the same as saying we shouldn’t try to guide events toward what we would like, but we shouldn’t underestimate the magnitude of the effort that will require, either.

  7. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    One should never curtail ideas, but based on our year and half in Virginia, privatizing does nothing to get good roads. Tolls, etc. only go into the pockets of the road owners. e.g. I suspect the Greenway tolls were raised so that it could be sold.

    As a local government professional, public, private partnerships usually mean, the public takes the risk and the private takes the money.

    Perhaps someday Virginians will realize that like the waging of war, roads, education, etc. require taxes. Only if citizens pay taxes, do they really have any say about public policy. Otherwise as we are learning, it becomes a private matter outside the purview of the media (bloggers)and citizens.

    Sorry to hear you are excited about the conference, Jim. You should be approaching it as you would with any scheme: with serious questions.

    Thank you

    Ed for the Common Good

  8. subpatre Avatar
    subpatre

    Thanks Jim. Unfortunately we’ve never seen a total of that size, much less any single project. Until we throw the gates open and ‘Loudounize’, we’ll continue to exist on the state’s leftovers.

    It’s a shame though. If you look at the road projects of most rural areas, there’s a large proportion that have potential or willing private partners. Because the scale is small, the pool of private parties is large.

    I’d submit that small scale PPPs can be fairer and more equitable too. Most transportation projects transfer wealth by increasing adjacent property values. If the transfer is from the public to property owner John Doe, then what’s wrong with allowing John Doe to participate in order to facilitate the project?

    Conversely, what’s equitable about increasing a few peoples’ property values without some financial participation from them, even if the overall project also benefits some of the public?

    Lets be honest here, few roads benefit “the public”. Most benefit a sizable chunk of a local population, but they are never completely equitable. All pay and only some benefit. That’s one of PPP’s positive premises: those who benefit pay, and those who risked their capital on the project can profit.

    Then there’s the definition of benefit; whether it’s financial benefit to adjacent property owners, life and safety benefit to drivers, logistical benefit to transportation firms, or a convenience benefit. [Nor can we ever completely ignore the “my buddy who owns a paving company benefit” motivations.]

    Jim – thanks for the invitation. It’s obviously for more urban areas than my needs, but maybe the concept will evolve into a more useful model in the future.

    Republitarian – According to the PW County schools, who actually have to track such things, their growth rate is 3%. They also state the growth averages 7,670 people per year, an unusual measure, but may indicate a decreasing rate. It’s probably a function of suburb-saturation and intentional (policy) slowing; the excess demand filled by Loudoun’s 10% or higher annual growth rate.

  9. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Anonymous 9:45, I described only one session in the conference. The sub-title of the event is “exploring transparency, risk and accountability.” The organizers — Pat McSweeney, Mike Thompson and I — are well aware that public-private partnerships have not always lived up to the hype. We are very concerned (a) that the process of negotiating public-private partnership contracts be as open to the public as reasonably possible, (b) that public entities not assume unnecessary financial risk should things go wrong, and (c) that there are mechanisms to maintain accountability to the public. Far from ignoring the serious questions, this conference is the first in Virginia, to my knowledge to begin exploring them in a systematic way.

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