Bacon's Rebellion

  • Richmond’s Water-Gate Fiasco Will Be Investigated

    Posted on

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Richmond Mayor Danny Avula committed himself yesterday to an “independent” investigation into the failure of Richmond’s water treatment facility, while Governor Glenn Youngkin said yesterday that the state would conduct its own inquiry.

    “We are absolutely outsourcing this. We’re going to bring in a third party to do that investigation,” Avula said at a Friday morning news conference.

    It wasn’t clear from press reports, however, exactly what would be investigated. The Richmonder framed the mayor’s promise in the context of answering questions about the timeline of events leading up to the water stoppages and steps taken to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control.

    A statement from the Governor yesterday afternoon implied that the state’s probe will be fairly broad in scope.

    “The commonwealth will start a detailed after action assessment and investigation immediately coordinated through the Virginia Department of Health Office of Drinking Water,” Youngkin said in a statement. “I know that the city of Richmond has announced they would do an independent assessment at the city level, but we need to do this work, because there are lots of issues, from operations to maintenance to infrastructure. We need to understand exactly what happened and what we need to do in order to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

    (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

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    James A. Bacon

  • Boil-Water Advisory

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Image credit: ChatGPT

    There’s an irony in the fact that the City of Richmond has extended its boil-water advisory until Saturday, even as city officials, generically speaking, find themselves in increasingly… hot water. That’s no comment on Mayor Danny Avula who just arrived on the job, but I’m betting that some city administrators and councilpersons are feeling the heat. –JAB

  • Mayor Avula, Appoint an Independent Commission to Fix Richmond’s Infrastructure

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Paul Goldman

    Once again, Richmond city government is facing a crisis of competence. The current water treatment plant fiasco is symbolic of this long history. You can’t run a city by moving from crisis to crisis. That’s why I believe Mayor Danny Avula should create an independent committee to review the city’s well-documented infrastructure mess and finally propose a solution,

    He should choose people whose knowledge of government finances is beyond question. And they should be individuals unafraid to step on whoever’s toes may need stepping on. 

    I’m hoping the new mayor will see the wisdom in this proposal. When facing similar type financial situations, former governors Wilder and Warner asked for my advice. They took it. This advice helped them win accolades for Virginia as the best-managed state. I’m convinced what I’m proposing for Avula will put Richmond on the road to being one of the best managed cities.

    The first thing RVA needs to do should be clear to any honest person: The 16-year era of the race-baiting politics of former Mayors Dwight Jones and Levar Stoney needs to come to an end. They and their cronies have used race to enrich too many, for far too long, with contracts they don’t deserve, jobs they can’t perform, patronage positions the city doesn’t need, and projects like the proposed Casino given to friends of the Mayor on a racial basis to folks who don’t actually respect the integrity of Black citizens.

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  • Hernandez Proposes Florida-Here-We-Come Bill

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    James A. Bacon

    Image credit: ChatGPT

    by Hans Bader

    Delegate Phil Hernandez, D-Norfolk, has introduced legislation to raise state income taxes on people making over $1 million per year. Their marginal tax rate would rise from 5.75% to 10%, under HB 2333. This tax increase won’t become law this year, but it might become law under a future Democratic governor.

    Virginia already has higher income taxes than most of its neighbors, unlike a decade ago. Back in 2015, Virginia had lower income tax rates than West Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky. Back then, the top marginal tax rate was 6.5% in West Virginia, 6% in Kentucky, and 5.8% in North Carolina, compared to 5.75% in Virginia. And the lowest tax rate (for low-income households) was 5.8% in North Carolina, 3% in West Virginia, and 2% in Kentucky, compared to 2% in Virginia (most taxpayers pay the top marginal tax rate in each state).

    But in the decade since, most of Virginia’s neighbors have cut tax rates, while Virginia has not. Kentucky now has a maximum tax rate of 4%, North Carolina now has a maximum tax rate of 4.25%, West Virginia now has a maximum tax rate of 4.82%, while Virginia still has a maximum tax rate of 5.75%. Tennessee has no state income tax. As a result, Virginia is now one of the ten-highest taxed states.

    (more…)

  • Water-Gate Needs an Independent Investigation

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    James A. Bacon

    Video of the Pump Room Flooding Monday
    byu/sleevieb inrva

    by James A. Bacon

    Evidence continues to emerge of warning signs that the City of Richmond’s water-treatment and distribution system suffered from a failure to properly maintain, repair and upgrade its physical plant. WTVR-CBS reported yesterday that a 2022 Environmental Protection Agency alerted the city to corroded pipes and bacterial contamination. Today the Richmond Times-Dispatch cites a planning department document in which a utility-department engineering manager requested replacements for three outdated water pumps at the Byrd Park Pumping Station for which repair parts were no longer available.

    The Water-Gate fiasco presents Richmond’s new mayor Danny Avula with a challenge and opportunity. His immediate priority is to restore supplies of drinkable water to the city and neighboring counties, a task he has undertaken with energy and earnestness.

    The obvious follow-up is to determine exactly what went wrong and ensure that it never happens again. But the work doesn’t stop there. Any inquiry into the causes of Water-Gate must examine the managerial and budgetary contributors to the breakdown.

    Why were the warning signs ignored? Was it managerial incompetence in the department of public works? Was it managerial incompetence in the upper echelons of the city administration? Were maintenance projects delayed due to chronic underfunding? Was City Hall distracted by the bright shiny object of “equity”?

    These questions are not easily answered. I join Paul Goldman, aide to former Governor L. Douglas Wilder and periodic candidate for city office, in calling for an independent investigation. The need for such an inquiry should be uncontroversial. What’s crucial is how the scope of the project is defined. Will the broader questions be addressed or will they be ruled out from the get-go?

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  • Big Solar’s Proposed Zoning Override Bill Still Opposed

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    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    The 2025 General Assembly is expected to consider another proposal to create a state-level approval process for certain large renewable energy projects, overriding local zoning authority. Based on recent public debates about the proposal, it is facing severe headwinds.  

    Similar bills were proposed and failed in 2024. The legislative Commission on Electric Utility Regulation (CEUR), newly energized with a strong renewable energy bias, has spent a year on a stakeholder process seeking to calm complaints from local governments, agriculture and forestry industry representatives and green energy skeptics.  

    The push for the bill is coming from renewable industry representatives and environmental activists who complain that good projects are being rejected for what they deem “bad reasons” by local authorities.  

    The most recent version of the proposed legislation was discussed at a CEUR meeting January 6, one the few public meetings this week in the waterless Virginia Capitol. The idea seemed to be drawing just as much fire as it was a year ago.  In perhaps the clearest sign the bill starts with a fever, Speaker of the House Don Scott (D-Portsmouth) expressed firm opposition.  

    (more…)

  • A Horrible Death in Colonial Heights – Part Two

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    sherlockj

    A Horrible Death in Colonial Heights – Part Two

    Nursing Facility Standards Enforcement

    Updated Jan 27 @ 1700

    by James C. Sherlock

    Part One of this series served as an introduction to the circumstances surrounding one of the worst deaths humanly imaginable. It shows what happens when standards are not enforced.

    Charges against staff. The government has alleged that the death was the result of criminal acts by facility staff at Colonial Heights Rehabilitation and Nursing Center (CHRNC) in Chesterfield County.

    It appears they may have a case. But it better be a strong one.

    The defense will plead that:

    • facility owners were at fault for systematically understaffing the facility to increase profits; and
    • the government was at fault for failing to oversee the facility and enforce federal law.

    Both of those claims will have the distinct advantage of being true.

    Charges against ownership? We do not know if indictments are pending against the owners of CHRNC. But that case may prove easier to make than the cases against staff.  

    The data on staffing related to enforcement of federal law are incredibly granular to the level of hours of specific job codes on the payroll every day of every quarter. The data are submitted by the owners themselves, are auditable against payroll systems the coding of which is mandated by CMS, and are available going back to Q1 of 2017.

    Because they control patient census, the owners will have limited options for defense to the charge of understaffing as a business model if the case is proven with their own data.

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  • State Money for Private Schools

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    University of Richmond

    The state of Virginia spends more than $100 million annually for Virginia students to attend private colleges and universities in the state.

    The program is the Tuition Assistance Grant program, commonly known as TAG, authorized in Sec. 23.1-628 through 23.1-635 of the Code of Virginia. There is no need or merit requirement. The student only needs to be a Virginia resident attending a Virginia accredited, private, nonprofit school. The program is available to undergraduate and graduate students.

    The amount available per student is set out in the Appropriation Act. For the current biennium, the basic annual grant is $5,125 the first year and $5,250 the second year. The amount for graduate and medical students is $5,000 for both the first year and second year. Totally on-line students receive half of those amounts; students attending a Historically Black College and University can receive $7,500 annually.

    The school that received the most, by far, was Liberty University, with $11.5 million distributed in the fall of 2024. Next was Virginia Union University in Richmond, at $5.7 million, followed by Shenandoah University in Winchester, with $4.2 million. The full list, provided by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, which administers the program, can be found here.

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  • Hodges Bill Would Require Universities to Archive Board Video

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Delegate Keith Hodges, R-Urbanna, has submitted a bill that would promote transparency in higher-ed governance. HB2452 would require public four-year institutions to record, archive, and make Boards of Visitors meetings available to the public for five years.

    Boards already live-stream their open-session meetings, as required by state law. But no requirement exists to make video accessible after the fact. I can’t speak for what other universities do, but the University of Virginia does not archive its meetings.

    An employee of the board’s secretary told me that UVA did not archive video of its meetings for reasons of economy. The law requires such recordings to be ADA accessible, meaning that they must have closed captioning… which would be prohibitively expensive to add.

    That might have been true at one time, but it no longer is. AI-powered closed captioning software has made the cost insignificant. Otter.ai, to pick one vendor, costs business clients $240 per year. UVA is a $5 billion-a-year organization. The university spends more money on doughnuts for board members than it would on closed captioning.

    (more…)

  • A Horrible Death in Colonial Heights – Part One

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    sherlockj

    A Horrible Death in Colonial Heights – Part One

    by James C. Sherlock

    On 29 October of 2024 a woman died under tragic circumstances in Virginia.  Her death was preceded by suffering that mercifully we cannot fully imagine.

    The government alleges that she died as a result of neglect at Innovative Healthcare Management’s (IHM) Colonial Heights Rehabilitation and Nursing Center (CHRNC) in Chesterfield County.

    The best summary report of her case that I have seen to date is here. The article, available to nurse.org’s >1.5 million monthly readers, discusses key details of the case and broader implications for nurses and elder care. The case has created an online firestorm among nurses.

    I will summarize it below. Quotations are from the article.

    Summary of events. The circumstances leading to the woman’s death are being investigated by Colonial Heights Police in coordination with Attorney General Miyares’ Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (investigates elder abuse in Virginia), the Virginia Department of Health and the Chesterfield Commonwealth Attorney’s office.

    On December 18, investigators arrested five individuals and issued warrants for 13 others, all CHRNC staff.

    Charges so far include seven counts of felony abuse and neglect of a vulnerable adult, two counts of misdemeanor abuse and neglect of a vulnerable adult, two counts of obstruction, and 27 counts of falsifying patient records.

    On December 19, 2024 Noelle Nochisaki, a prosecutor representing the Commonwealth Attorney, alleged in Chesterfield General District Court that a 74-year-old woman with cerebral palsy and diabetes:

    • was left in her bed in CHNRC for days in her own urine and feces, not turned or changed, resulting in severe flesh wounds;
    • the wounds were so severe that they caused sepsis.
    • she was admitted to the hospital, where the infection resulted in her death.

    She continued:
    … the victim’s foot was broken at some point, and she was given incorrect medicine that “poisoned” her, and instead of reporting the incident and having her transported to the hospital, staff just observed her.

    The prosecutor then told Judge James O’Connell:

    … her wounds from the poor care were so bad that Adult Protective Services originally thought she may have been the victim of a sexual assault. That was not the case, though the flesh wounds to the patient’s genital region were so bad, they were described as necrotic.

    Underscoring the seriousness of the allegations, at least two supervisors were initially denied bail.

    (more…)

  • Democrats And Their Undying Love of Criminals

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Yesterday I spoke to a Republican women’s group in Virginia Beach and during the Q and A someone mentioned that State Sen. Aaron Rouse of Virginia Beach was sponsoring a bill that would give tax credits to employers who hire convicted felons.

    What would we do without Democrats and their relentless love of law breakers?

    When I got to my computer I checked out the information. I found this on X:

    My first reaction: Just what we need, people convicted of violent felonies working construction around our houses unbeknownst to us, driving for Uber, working in our homes for exterminating companies.

    Unsettling, to say the least. Continue reading.

  • How About a Regional Solution to Richmond’s Water Woes? No Thanks.

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    In a myriad of small ways, the City of Richmond’s water woes have spilled into neighboring Henrico County where I live. The County is on water-boil alert, making cooking meals a hassle. One of my favorite restaurants, which is normally half full on Wednesday nights, was so jammed with diners when I stopped by to pick up a pizza that nary a spare table was seen. With no water service in their city apartments, my son and his girlfriend dropped by last evening for hot showers. (It’s always good to see them, so I’m not complaining.)

    Needless to say, in the city itself, where service last night had been restored to a mere trickle, the water shutdown is not a minor inconvenience, it’s an all-consuming preoccupation. As city officials inch closer to getting taps and toilets flowing, people are looking beyond the immediate crisis and asking how to make sure a shutdown never happens again.

    One line of thought, advanced by the Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial board yesterday and by RTD columnist Michael Paul Williams today, is to seek a regional solution.

    “Nothing works without water. Simply put, this cannot happen again,” writes Williams. “Once we move from crisis mode to assessment mode, there needs to be honest dialogue on what went wrong, how to prevent it, and whether our current water setup makes sense if it doesn’t protect the entire region from an unforeseen catastrophe. Rather than our patchwork network, how about a truly regional framework for water delivery?”

    Let’s unpack this. It is true, the failure of the City of Richmond’s water system had regional consequences because Henrico and Hanover Counties depend in part on Richmond for their water supplies. But as a Henrico resident, I have a very different reaction than Williams.

    (more…)

  • Democrats Demand Massive Tax Hike on Virginians

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    James A. Bacon

    Meanwhile, Republicans plan to return a $1.2 billion surplus back to taxpayers.

    by Victoria Manning

    Virginia Democrats are wasting no time proposing a huge tax increase on Virginians by slapping a 5 percent tax on virtually every service in the commonwealth—despite the state’s budget surplus. The massive increase, proposed by longtime Democrat Vivian Watts, would land squarely on small businesses and tradesmen such as plumbers, electricians, landscapers, and barbers.

    If HB 1755 passes, Virginians will be required to pay more for dry cleaning, vehicle repair, sporting events, nutrition services, animal boarding, digital services, and much more.

    Virginia is already ranked an abysmal 28th on the State Tax Competitiveness Index, which sorts states’ taxation competitiveness in different areas such as income tax, property tax, and sales tax. If Democrats get their way, Virginia will certainly decline further in the rankings. The state income tax is one of the worst in the nation and Virginia is one of the few states that taxes its citizens through a personal property tax on vehicle ownership.

    Restoration News spoke to Tim Anderson, a former Virginia Delegate who is running for reelection in Virginia’s 97th House District. He weighed in on HB 1755, saying, “Services have never been taxed in Virginia and despite Virginia having record surpluses each of the past 3 years, Democrats have the audacity to try to take more money from Virginians to fund progressive causes such as the electric vehicle mandate.” Anderson also shared his concerns regarding the impact a tax increase would have, “with inflation crushing Virginians pocketbooks at the grocery store, out of touch Democrats think the best thing to do is take more of your money.” Continue reading.

  • Richmond’s Water-Gate Scandal

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    What an embarrassment. The City of Richmond’s water system shut down Monday, just as the General Assembly was scheduled to convene in the state Capitol. With no working toilets, legislators decided to delay deliberations until next week. As the city struggled to restore service, restaurants closed, a waterless VCU Medical Center turned away ambulances, and citizens were put on a boil-water advisory. Mere days after assuming office, Mayor Danny Avula found himself scrambling to get the water flowing again.

    City officials were able to provide only sketchy details about how a two- to four-inch snowfall knocked out the city’s water system. Media reports suggest a cascading effect involving a snow-related interruption in power to the century-old water-treatment facility, a malfunctioning component that caused flooding, and electrical devices shorting out and rendering pumps inoperable.

    How could this have happened? Avula undoubtedly will launch a probe to explain what went wrong. The inevitable post mortem assuredly will lay out the proximate causes of the fiasco from an engineering perspective. Whether the investigation explores underlying fiscal and management issues depends upon how Avula frames the scope of the inquiry.

    (more…)

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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Bacon’s Rebellion is Virginia’s leading politically non-aligned portal for news, opinions and analysis about state, regional and local public policy. Read more about us here.

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