Bacon's Rebellion

  • After Prince William, Is Chesterfield Next?

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    James A. Bacon

    Prince William County’s crackdown on illegal immigrants may spawn imitators around the state, reports the Times-Dispatch. Chesterfield County, which is studying the illegal-alien issue, might consider proposals similar to Prince William’s actions. Said Supervisor Chair Kelly E. Miller:

    “I don’t know until we get back the report what kind of options exist for us legally, but I want to aggressively go at it. I think we need to be aggressive in attempting to identify these illegals,” he said. “I don’t want to be crazy about this thing. I don’t want to be out on a witch hunt. But at the same time, we need to . . . get more aggressive in identifying illegals, get a handle on what our tax resources are being used for and limit them to those who are legally entitled.”

  • Conservation Easements in Isle of Wight County

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    James A. Bacon

    Isle of Wight County has garnered national recognition for its rural landscape preservation program. The National Association of Counties has named the rural economic development program the “best overall program” in the country, reports the Daily Press.

    What’s so special? Isle of Wight has $2.2 million, and plans to add $500,000 a year to the pot, to purchase conservation easements from county farmers. The goal is to preserve 2,000 acres by 2010. The plan benefits farmers, who get to pocket some cash and enjoy lower taxes on their land. The plan benefits the county because it provides financially hard-pressed farmers an alternative to selling off chunks of their land to pay the bills. When that land is developed, it puts financial pressure on the county to extend services to the people who move there. Purchasing the easements helps the county avoid those costs.

    A committee will review applications and make recommendations to the Board of Supervisors, which will make the final decision on which easements to purchase.

    I’m wondering if this might provide an attractive alternative to the state practice of granting tax credits to landowners who bequeath conservation easements. Financially, a tax credit differs little from an outright purchase of the easement — money still comes out of the state’s pocket. The virtue of the Isle of Wight approach is that a committee evaluates the alternatives and, presumably, ranks them according to the county’s priorities.

    Frankly, I’m not sure how the state conservation easement program works, now that the General Assembly has capped the value of tax credits that can be granted in any given year. Are landowners granted the easements on a first-come, first-serve basis, with unfunded requests carried over to the next year? Does anyone in the state formally review and rank the requests according to the state’s priorities? Inquiring minds want to know.

  • Flashback: The Illegal Immigration Crackdown Bills that Never Made It

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    James A. Bacon

    The Prince William County Board of Supervisors grabbed center stage yesterday with its resolution, one of the toughest local ordinances in the country, designed to curtail illegal immigration. But the PWC supervisors weren’t acting in a vacuum. The House of Delegates had laid much of the intellectual groundwork this spring, passing a number of bills — some by broad margins, incidentally, suggesting a measure of bipartisan support — that got killed in the Senate Courts of Justice Committee.

    These bills received very little press coverage at the time. I’ve extracted these descriptions from an old press release issued by the Speaker of the House’s office:

    HB 1618
    Patron: Jeffrey M. Frederick, R-Prince William.
    Passed House 69-31, killed in Senate Courts of Justice 11-3.
    Provides for the Governor to enter into an agreement with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement that would allow the Department of State Police to enforce civil immigration laws.

    HB 1970
    Patron: David B. Albo, R-Fairfax.
    Passed House 70-28, killed in Senate Courts of Justice.
    Provides that any alien who is present in the United States illegally and is removable, as verified by the federal Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.

    HB 2687
    Patron: John S. Reid, R-Henrico.
    Passed House 62-37, killed in Senate Courts of Justice 11-4.
    Discourages businesses from knowingly hiring illegal aliens by making it an unfair employment practice to knowingly employ an unauthorized alien within the Commonwealth.

    HB 2926
    Patron: Thomas Davis Rust, R-Fairfax/Loudoun.
    Passed House 92-6, killed in Senate Courts of Justice 11-4.
    Expands the powers of state and local law-enforcement officials to include immigration powers conferred upon the law-enforcement agency by agreement with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

    HB 3130
    Patron: Kathy J. Byron, R-Bedford/Campbell.
    Passed House 71-28, killed in Senate Finance.
    Prohibits the issuance of a business license to any individual who cannot provide legal documents proving such individual is legally eligible to be employed or to work in the United States.

    Then there was this bill, which protected immigrants — and passed unanimously in both the House and Senate:

    HB 1921
    Patron: H. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem.
    Passed House 99-0, Passed Senate 40-0.
    Protects immigrants by penalizing any person who exhorts anyone by knowingly destroying, concealing, removing, confiscating, or possessing a passport or other immigration document, or other government identification document of another person.

    I think illegal immigration could be a sleeper issue in the fall elections.

  • BioFuels vs. People

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    James A. Bacon

    From the Private Sector Development Blog comes a link to a Foreign Affairs article with the ominous title of “”How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor.”

    It’s worth reading in its entirety because it looks beyond just the U.S. and our politically-driven mania for corn-based ethanol. And here’s one factoid that leaps from the page:

    Filling the 25-gallon tank of an SUV with pure ethanol requires over 450 pounds of corn – which contains enough calories to feed one person for a year.

    Not that my Rover will run on pure ethanol…or that a person could sustain themselves merely on corn for a year. But the energy trade-off in shocking.

  • Smart Meters for a Hot Summer Day

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    James A. Bacon

    Life and vacation have gotten in the way of blogging recently. Nevertheless, the ideas keep turning, so long as Bacon has a keyboard nearby.

    While catching up on my reading, I came across a post at Knowledge Problem on “smart meters,” which might soon be making a widespread appearance in Pennsylvania, if Gov. Ed Rendell has his way:

    A key element of his plan would require all the state’s utilities to install computerized “smart meters” in every customer’s home or business, so that all electricity users will be able to see the real cost of power at peak-demand periods.

    Some customers could volunteer for so-called “demand-side management” programs, which might allow their utility to power-down their air conditioners when temperatures soar while they are at work.

    Others might choose “time of day” pricing and manage their consumption as cell phone users manage their minutes. Even in the summer, power demand dips low enough overnight that electricity often costs just a few cents per kilowatt-hour.

    A PJM staff study found that demand-side management saved electricity users $650 million during the first week of August 2006, when demand soared. On Aug. 2 alone, it said, voluntary cutbacks in usage saved $230 million.

    The cost? PJM said payments to customers who curtailed usage, which are pegged to the hourly clearing price for buying spot power, totaled $5 million for the week.

    “The key is that small reductions in peak demand produce large reductions in peak price for all customers,” Hanger said. “Every customer benefits, whether they are shifting demand or not, because the whole market price falls.”

    Cost transparency is a good thing, particularly when it gives consumers more control over the purchases (in this case, electricity).

    Will we see smart meters in Virginia any time soon? I won’t hold my breath.

  • PWC to Illegals: Go Home

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    James A. Bacon

    The illegal immigration debate may have dialed back to a simmer in Congress but it’s heating back up locally. The Prince William County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously last night to curb access by illegal immigrants to public services and to step up immigration enforcement by local police.

    The public hearing was Prince William’s largest in 20 years; manay in the overflow crowd of roughly 400 watched the proceedings on closed circuit television in the lobby. More than 100 people addressed the board.

    It’s still not clear exactly which services would be restricted. The county would not curtail access to schools or emergency medical care. Presumably, the restrictions would apply to welfare-like public assistance benefits. The measure gives county workers 60 to 90 days, depending upon which newspaper you believe, to help board members determine which public services can be lawfully denied to illegal immigrants.

    The measure issued a directive to require police to ask people about their immigration status, if they had probable cause to do so. The resolution also directed the police department to enter into an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement to train officers who would enforce immigration laws under ICE supervision.

    For details see:

    The Washington Post
    The Washington Examiner
    The Manassas Journal-Messenger
    The Washington Times
    And, for the most colorful coverage, see Black Velvet Bruce Li, whose Greg Letiecq led a group called Help Save Manassas in support of the ordinance. (Use your Firefox browser to access the blog.)

    Foes of the measure raised a number of practical objections, but the main rhetorical thrust was this: If you want to crack down on illegal immigration, you’re racist. I’m sorry, but the old canard of crying racism-racism-racism has been played so many times that it’s lost its power. There is no tradition or history of anti-Hispanic racism in Virginia, and no sense of guilt to appease. Indeed, Northern Virginia is a hotbed of Hispanic business enterprise, which suggests the very opposite, that Virginians are very hospitable to Hispanics who reside here legally.

    (I would say this: Prince William could inoculate itself against such charges if it required police to check the immigration status of anyone convicted of a crime, not to rely upon the subjective judgment of probable cause. If you’ve been convicted of a crime and you reside here illegally, I don’t care if you’re Hispanic or if you’re a blond-haired, blue-eyed Eastern European, I don’t friggin’ want you in this country.)

    Prince William’s action may be the forerunner of things to come. Clearly, the anti-illegal movement has legs, not just nationally but locally. House Republicans proposed a number of laws earlier this year pertaining to illegal immigration. With all the excitement over transportation and land use, I didn’t have time to delve into them. If I get a chance, I’ll resurrect some of that info.

  • NoVa: More Obscure, Hidden Taxes Coming Your Way

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    James A. Bacon

    Northern Virginia approaches a decision point on tax increases of some $300 million to $400 million to support regional transportation projects. The Northern Virginia Transportation Authority will meet Thursday to vote on each of the seven new taxes and fees in the funding package, according to the Washington Examiner (which, by the way, has done a fabulous job of covering transportation and land use issues in the Washington region).

    A number of contentious issues have come up. Loudoun County is worried that a share of the bonded indebtedness taken on by the regional transportation authority might count against Loudoun’s indebtness, possibly jeopardizing its AAA bond rating. (See last week’s Examiner coverage of this topic.)

    Now, it appears, objections to a five percent sales tax on automobile repairs have surfaced. The tax would raise an estimated $33 million a year. Objection No. 1: The measure would set an unfortunate precedent as a tax on services. It’s not difficult to imagine the levee breaking on that one, leading to a flood of taxes on a multitude of services for a multitude of narrow-bore needs and adding significantly to the tax burden over time. Objection No. 2: Local auto repair shops are worried that the tax will place them at a competitive disadvantage, sending consumers across county lines to shops not subject to the tax.

    Objection No. 3 (this is my concern, not one mentioned in the story): Although the tax is related tangentially to car ownership, it bears only the most tenuous and indirect connection between how much a citizen pays into the transportation system and how far, and when, he drives. Its sole purpose is to raise money in the most obscure and opaque way possible so citizens don’t see or understand how much they’re being taxed. A rational transportation-funding system would make the taxes fully transparent, and would be structured to incentivize citizens to drive less.

    I know this point is really subtle, because it has gone virtually unmentioned by every elected official involved in the debate, but when people drive less, there is less traffic congestion! I know that’s an awfully difficult concept for some people to wrap their arms around, but I keep thinking that if I repeat it often enough, the idea might penetrate.

  • Wilder on Richmond Schools: More Accountability, Not Mo’ Money

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    James A. Bacon

    Richmond Mayor Doug Wilder can be his own worst enemy: He’s picked a fight with just about everyone in the city there is to pick a fight with. But that doesn’t make him wrong. He is dead-on accurate with his criticism of the city’s woefully underperforming schools. And he’s the only one in recent memory who’s been willing to knock heads with an intractable educational bureaucracy.

    As Wilder stated in his most recent edition of “Visions,” an electronic newsletter:

    Today, if our students are ill-educated and ill-prepared to enter the world beyond secondary school, we cannot blame it on a lack of money. Richmond Public Schools spends almost 60 percent more per student annually than any of the surrounding jurisdictions, while lagging far behind in critical measures of student achievement. In Richmond, we spend $12,385 per pupil per year; in Chesterfield the amount is $7,467; Henrico spends $7,637; and Hanover spends $7,496 per student.

    Richmond’s dropout rate in 2005 was four times that of Hanover and almost twice that of Chesterfield and Henrico. In fact, of school systems with 10,000 or more students, Richmond had the highest dropout rate statewide. We should all be concerned and involved, as it takes the whole city to improve our schools.

    Who suffers from this lamentable performance? The predominantly African-American student body, which enters the workforce lacking the tools to prosper in a globally competitive, knowledge-based economy. Says Wilder:

    One’s academic status … relates to criminal activity and incarceration. Nationally, about half of young black men who do not graduate from high school are either locked up or are on probation or parole, according to the Richmond Sheriff’s Department.

    I, for one, applaud Wilder for demanding accountability and performance from city schools instead of taking the easy course of demanding “mo’ money.” Could the mayor handle his dispute with the school board more diplomatically? Undoubtedly. Would more tactful behavior do much to change a dysfunctional system? Probably not.

  • A New Tax Regime for Downtown Richmond!

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    James A. Bacon

    Wow, there is some really great “land use” and community-development commentary coming out of Richmond blogs these days. The latest is a post by Ambivalent Richmonder, “Tax Land, Not Buildings,” that advocates a radical restructuring of the real estate tax in downtown Richmond. In a nutshell, he proposes a Henry George system of taxation that would tax the land but not the improvements upon it.

    As the Ambivalent One observes, “Taxing buildings creates a disincentive for development and encourages land speculation.”

    Land speculation in downtown Richmond is most visible as undeveloped parking lots. And a surfeit of parking lots creates problems of its own. Abundant parking lots translate into cheap parking, which encourages commuters to drive to work solo. If parking lots weren’t so favorably treated under the tax system, the cost of parking would be higher and, on the margin, a larger number of people would either carpool or ride the bus to work.

    Parking lots also are undesirable because they disrupt the urban fabric, making the business district less hospitable to pedestrians. Walkability facilitates human interaction, giving downtowns a competitive advantage over auto-dependent Nerdistans in the ‘burbs for those activities that thrive on creativity and innovation.

    My only disagreement with Ambivalent Richmonder: He recommends establishing Henry George taxation for downtown Richmond. Why not for the entire city? Indeed, why not for all of the land within a logical “Clear Edge” for the entire Richmond metropolitan area?

  • Electric Conservation On a Roll Everywhere — Except Virginia

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    James A. Bacon

    As the State Corporation Commission oversees the process of setting achievable conservation goals for Virginia — it is possible to cost-effectively cut 2006 levels of electricity consumption levels by 10 percent over the next 15 years? — will anyone be calling upon Commonwealth Edison, Progress Energy, Southern California Edison or FPL Group to testify?

    Those are only some of the electric power companies, according to today’s Wall Street Journal, that are experimenting with programs to help customers conserve electricity. Notably, none of the companies mentioned serve Virginia markets. Nor, outside a handful of blogs and environmental groups, does anyone in Virginia seem to be raising the conservation issue.

    Just so you know how increasingly out of step Virginia is, let me quote the first two paragraphs of the WSJ article:

    Utilities are rolling out more programs than ever to help consumers cut their energy use, motivated by cost considerations, pressure from regulators and increased consumer acceptance. In doing so, they hope to cut greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants, forestall the need for building new plants and put a brake on rising electricity costs.

    Moving beyond traditional rebate programs, utilities are putting sophisticated tools in consumers’ hands, such as online calculators, advanced electric meters, in-home displays, remote-control devices and innovative pricing plans. Some consumers say they’re changing their energy habits as a result, a task that can be time-consuming but which many people say they find rewarding.

    In a voluntary program, Commonwealth Edison in Illinois charges consumers variable prices for electricity. Carolinas-based Progress Energy has set the goal of conserving 2,000 megawatts on electricity in the new few years, the equivalent to four big power plants. Southern California Edison has signed up a thousand technicians to offer air-conditioning tune-ups. FPL Group in Florida is unveiling an Internet tool that lets small business owners calculate how much energy different processes and equipment use.

    Virginia has just signed into law legislation that will encourage electric utilities to meet growing demand for electricity mainly by building more power plants and transmission lines, with barely a nod to conservation and renewable energy. A goal of 10 percent conservation over 15 years is purely nominal. What a shame.

  • Shearing the Sheep: Fairfax County Tax Burden Surges

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    James A. Bacon

    The decade of the 2000s has witnessed an extraordinary growth in spending and taxation at the local level in Virginia. Nowhere does this point emerge more clearly than a chart prepared by the Fairfax County Taxpayers Association that shows inflation-adjusted real estate taxes per household in Fairfax County. Comparable charts for neighboring jurisdictions, I am quite confident, would show similar spikes over the past few years.

    Where’s the tax revolt? Nowhere in sight, from what I can tell. Maybe there are so many refugees from New York and New Jersey now living in Northern Virginia that many voters feel the tax burden is nothing to complain about.

  • Downtown Plans and Balanced Communities

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    James A. Bacon

    John Sarvay has published Part II of his series about Richmond’s downtown master plan: “What’s a Downtown Plan?” The plan, as it turns out, is not a tool for control freaks and social engineers. It is a guide. As Sarvay quotes from the plan itself:

    Its purpose is to serve as a guide to assist in public and private decision-making relative to a wide variety of issues affecting the future of Downtown Richmond. It is intended to be used by the City as a guide for making public capital investment decisions and establishing land use policies and regulations. Of equal importance is the role of the Plan as a tool providing guidance to Downtown stakeholders and potential investors in making decisions affecting Downtown’s future.

    That seems entirely appropriate. The plan provides a roadmap for local government to use in planning its public capital investments. It also provides the private sector guidance in what kind of re-zoning requests the locality is likely to approve and where it will be most willing to make public capital investment. Actual execution of the plan is another issue entirely. Circumstances change. Unexpected opportunities arise. Politics intervenes. Nothing is carved in stone — but the plan, which represents a consensus of opinion, carries a certain moral force. It is not deviated from lightly.

    Which brings us to an issue of much contention in the comments sections of this blog: Ed Risse’s concept of the “Balanced Community” and how it might be achieved. EMR is in the process of developing his thoughts fully, which he will publish in book form in the near future. Until then, we have to rely upon the fragmentary hints he provides on this blog. The controversy to this point revolves around the suspicion that “planning” for a Balanced Community will be some kind of top-down process imposed by social engineers upon an unwilling public.

    Here’s how I see it: “Planning” for a Balanced Community — a community with a balance of jobs, housing, retail and amenities and a transportation system to fit — needs be no more top-down than the process of creating Richmond’s downtown plan. The idea is to provide a roadmap (1) for future public capital improvements, and (2) for future rezoning decisions. Where the process would differ is in recognizing that the organic components of Balanced Communities often overlap political jurisdictions, thus planning is not something that can be undertaken by a single locality. Some Balanced Communities might overlap two or even three jurisdictions, thus requiring genuine coordination and cooperation between local governments, or more logically (and politically difficult) a rewriting of local government boundaries to reflect the economic-social realities on the ground.

  • The Emerging Conservationist Majority

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    James A. Bacon

    Environmentalism isn’t just for Democrats anymore. Strong support of environmental priorities cuts across party lines, according to a statewide public opinion survey sponsored by the Virginia League of Conservation Voters Education Fund and the Piedmont Environmental Council.

    The conservation coalition that emerges is as diverse as the electorate itself, ranging from Republican-leaning audiences, such as conservatives who attend church at least weekly, to liberal secular voters. Voters support a conservation agenda and conservation candidates, contend the survey’s sponsors. Says Lisa Guthrie, Executive Director of the Virginia League of Conservation Voters Education Fund: “There is a clear and growing “Conservation Majority” of voters that is demanding that our Commonwealth take further actions to preserve and enhance our communities.”

    Some of the findings:

    • 61 percent of voters believe the State must have a large role in solving the issue of global warming.
    • 61 percent say cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay is a top concern in deciding their vote for candidate for public office.
    • 68 percent prefer a candidate for public office who supports more transportation options for Virginia, such as more commuter rail and expanded bus services to reduce traffic.
    • 65 percent say that a candidate’s view on land use, growth and curbing sprawl will be the most important or an important factor in their voting decision

    To see details of the survey, click here.

    Republicans, take note. Environmental issues have traditionally been Democratic issues. As a rule, Democrats have an affinity for government- and rules-oriented public policy solutions. That’s why solutions to environmental issues tend to augment the power of government at the expense of free markets and property rights. If you don’t like an expanding role for government, you’d better embrace the environmental ethos as your own and devise market-based solutions.

  • More Roads, Worse Congestion. Could There Be a Connection?

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    James A. Bacon

    Chesterfield County has 4,000 miles of roads and streets, and it’s adding new roads at the rate of 35 miles per year — more than any other locality in Virginia. Despite a massive gift of state General Fund dollars to pay for construction of the Rt. 288 circumferential highway, Chesterfield officials worry that they need hundreds of millions of dollars more. About $1 billion more.

    Under the new transportation funding legislation, Chesterfield will get a little more money for new construction but not much: only $45 million over the next six years for secondary roads. According to Julian Walker with the Times-Dispatch, Chesterfield officials are considering raising some $300 million in local funds to play catch-up.

    Some of the options: higher impact fees, issuing bonds through Community Development Authorities to be repaid through special tax districts, and issuing county-backed bonds to be repaid.

    Here’s what’s not being considered, assuming that Walker’s article is fairly comprehensive in covering the spectrum of debate: Reforming land use patterns. Although the county has approved, or is in the processing of approving, a handful of major mixed-use, New Urbanism-style developments, it is responding to the initiatives of the development community, not making the changes proactively. There is no discussion of creating Balanced Communities. There are no moves, above and beyond the current modest initiatives, to aggressively re-develop aging districts of the county already served by roads. There is no discussion of Transit Oriented Development served by rail.

    You’d think someone among Chesterfield’s leaders would ask: If we’re building more roads than anyone else, why are traffic conditions deteriorating faster? Could we be building roads in the wrong places? (Is Rt. 288 accelerating the pattern of leapfrog, disconnected, low-density development at the root of congestion?) Is building more roads really the remedy? How about making better use of the roads we already have? How about building communities where people can drive fewer, shorter trips in their cars?

    Unless there is a breakthrough in thinking, traffic congestion in Chesterfield County will continue to get worse, not better, no matter how much money the County raises for new construction.

  • New Urbanism Comes to an Old Downtown

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    James A. Bacon

    Once again, John Sarvay, author of the Buttermilk and Molasses blog, has demonstrated that he is a “must read” for land use issues in the Richmond region. In his latest post, he sets the scene for the update of the city’s Downtown Master Plan, with particular attention to the urban design firm, Dover Kohl & Partners, that will lead the effort.

    One of the most important decisions in updating the Master Plan is deciding which firm to engage to run the charrette. Very appropriately, in a recent post, “The Downtown Master Plan Revisited: Part One: Huh?”, Sarvay asks, just who is Dover Kohl & Partners?

    Dover Kohl, though based in Florida, has Virginia roots: The principals graduated from Virginia Tech. Then they studied under New Urbanism gurus Andres Duany and his wife Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk at the University of Miami. Among many projects, they have worked with the City of Fairfax on a master plan to re-develop Fairfax Boulevard (Rt. 50).

    To get a flavor of the kind of thinking that Dover Kohl might apply to downtown Richmond, I refer you to the article by the Fairfax Times about the Rt. 50 plan. The vision there is to transform the suburban arterial into “a tree-lined, multi-lane roadway.” Three major nodes along the boulevard would offer a classic New Urbanist mix of residential, commercial and retail. The plan would give special emphasis to walkability.

    The challenges for the City of Richmond are very different. The “old” urbanism of Downtown already provides high densities, minimal setbacks, a gridded street pattern and highly walkable streetscapes. The only obvious challenge that strikes me is figuring out how to accelerate the revival of downtown residential.

    The City of Richmond and its civic boosters have fallen prey in the past to the allure of the “mega project” that will magically stimulate downtown revival. The 6th Street Marketplace, the Convention Center and the Performing Arts Center are the most notable fiascos, although there have been others. The good news about Dover Kohl, suggests Sarvay based on his Internet readings, is that New Urbanists like Dover Kohl appear to be nudging the market away from mega-projects. Their goal, if I might interject an editorial observation, is to create a zoning and conceptual framework that enables market forces to engage in smaller-scale projects that function effectively together, so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

    My sense is that dowtown Richmond actually works remarkably well and, left to its own devices, will flourish. The most important thing is not to screw things up, and not to induce the community into backing more foolish projects. Unfortunately, I won’t have time to attend the Downtown Master Plan charrette. If Sarvay does, I will relay his observations to you.

Now Available

Book cover of 'Dust Mites: A Second American Revolution' by James A. Bacon, featuring astronauts planting a flag with a blue and white emblem on a lunar landscape, with Earth visible in the background.
For sale on Amazon.com

The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….

This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.

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