Bacon's Rebellion

Part II of a Two-Part Series

In the world of Richmond media, Jim Bacon occupies a unique place. A former publisher of Virginia Business, the Media General publication that chronicles developments in the Commonwealth’s economy, Bacon launched an online magazine called Bacon’s Rebellion in 2002. That publication’s tagline is “The Op-Ed page for Virginia’s New Economy.” Bacon had a long history in traditional public affairs and business journalism, starting his career as a gumshoe reporter in western Virginia. Through his online magazine and blog, Bacon and his stable of writers (this writer included) offer up perspectives on politics, public policy, economics and the media. He also is the co-owner of the VA Newswire, a business “intelligence” operation that gathers and summarizes relevant corporate-focused nuggets from media sources.

With his combination of experiences and personal connections, Bacon speaks with some measure of authority on the local Richmond media market. Turning his eyes to his one-time colleagues, he asserts that “The Times-Dispatch is a middling paper that management is trying to make better. But management has an up-hill job – the newspaper is under tremendous pressure to cut costs to offset stagnant circulation and advertising revenues.”

Bacon believes that the daily paper gives the city of Richmond an inordinate amount of coverage compared to other localities in the metropolitan area. He says “city politics gets lots of ink – county politics gets ink only when there’s a scandal. I read the newspaper more carefully than most people, and I don’t know who my county supervisor is. I don’t know who the chairman of the board of supervisors is. Other than the occasional zoning dispute or the latest flap in the school system, I know next to nothing about the major issues facing the county (through reading the Times-Dispatch).”

He notes that, “to me, media bias, which does exist, is less a problem than the media’s unwillingness to cover key issues at all.” In the case of Metro Richmond, Bacon sees the mainstream press as slanted against folks south of the River and west of downtown. To him, “If there’s a bias, it’s in favor of covering the city and ignoring the suburbs.” Despite his criticisms, he is skeptical of the usefulness of a news council as a response to shortcomings in local news coverage. Bacon notes, “If other people want to form a news council, that’s fine for them. I’m not interested.” Bacon prefers an alternative medium to perform the watch-dog functions of a news council – blogs.

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The theme of the House of Delegates legislative package for the transportation special session is “transforming the delivery of transportation services in Virginia.” The reforms enumerated in the House Speaker’s press release yesterday would live up to that billing. At the top of the list of 10 proposals is the following: “Integrate performance measures, specifically on congestion, into the Statewide Transportation Plan.”

This reform will require Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) and the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) to focus transportation investments on projects designed to relieve traffic congestion. By directing funds to improvements that optimize the capacity of existing roadways and transportation infrastructure, VDOT will more efficiently use available resources.

By evaluating improvements based on performance criteria, such as delay reductions or travel time improvements (achieved through better traffic signal synchronization, faster accident management, more telework opportunities, or other means), VDOT can move beyond “on-time” and “on-budget,” and focus on delivering transportation improvements that achieve direct benefits for commuters and travelers.

This is fundamental. As it stands now, road improvements can be made for all manner of justifications, including the nebulous concept “economic development.” I’m all in favor of economic development, but not when it is used as a cover for opening up new tracts of land for development when there is plenty of underutilized land already served by roads and other infrastructure. This measure would focus scarce road improvement funds on projects that relieve traffic congestion.

With these new performance metrics, it would be much harder to justify building something like the $400 million Route 288 project southwest of Richmond. That project was financed on the basis of an economic development justification — attracting a Motorola semiconductor plant to the Richmond region — that never panned out. Route 288 has helped reduce traffic congestion in the short run (we’ll see what happens in the long run after it has induced scattered development on the metropolitan periphery), but that same $400 million could have eliminated a dozen smaller bottlenecks that would have provided far more congestion relief.

In a huge conceptual breakthrough, House seems to be broadening the definition of what constitutes a “transportation improvement.” Business As Usual has defined it as adding more lane-miles of road. But the House is willing to consider any kind of investment — traffic light synchronization, accident-response management, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) — that increases the capacity of road networks. Such alternative investments have received short shrift over the years. Presumably, the House legislation would put them on a more equal footing for consideration.

Combine the elevated status of ITS projects with an increased emphasis on public-private partnerships (Number Two in the transportation reform Hit Parade), and this legislation can open up all sorts of previously unimaginable possibilities. Public-private partnerships might upgrade entire transportation corridors, for instance, with a mix of traditional road construction (new lanes), traffic light synchronization and mass transit — whatever combination of tools works most efficiently.

If there were a tool for combining that kind of flexibility with changes to local land use along the corridor — increasing densities, allowing mixed uses, adopting transportation management plans — Virginia could create some revolutionary possibilities.

House Speaker William J. Howell has released the House leadership’s 10-point legislative package for the upcoming transportation session. There is some very good stuff in here, though it falls fall short of the systemic reforms that are needed. You can view the press release here.

In addition to this package, we can anticipate plans from Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to hike regional taxes for regional road-building programs, as reported by the Washington Post and Virginian-Pilot. Additionally, I anticipate a proposal for a congestion-pricing pilot project in Northern Virginia.

I will offer a more detailed analysis later. Suffice it to say for now, the package represents a big step forward.

Update: J.R. Hoeft interviews Del. Phillip Hamilton, R-Newport News, about the House’s transportation package of legislation. Indispensable background for understanding the thinking of the House leadership.

In a news conference yesterday, leaders of 21 Northern Virginia business groups made the case that traffic congestion will undermine the area’s prosperity and harm residents’ quality of life if additional money is not found to build roads. They backed a plan by Delegates Thomas Davis Rust and David B. Albo, both Fairfax County Republicans, that would raise $417 million a year for Northern Virginia Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties by hiking local taxes and fees.

Reports Washington Post reporter Tim Craig:

The plan, part of which would have to be approved by local officials, calls for higher vehicle registration fees and a 2 percent increase in hotel and rental car taxes. It also raises taxes on developed commercial and industrial properties in the region.

“It’s not a sales tax; it’s not a gas tax. It’s not an income tax,” Rust said. “These are very directed fees toward people who are using the transportation system and impacting the transportation system.”

Here are the questions I have for Delegates Rust and Albo:

• Where did you come up with $400 million? Is that the amount that you think you can push through politically, or does it have some connection with what’s actually needed?
• What projects do you intend to fund with that $400 million a year? Let’s see the kind of transportation improvements you have in mind.
• Is there a rational nexus between whom you’d tax and who would benefit from the road improvements? Put another way, would this plan, in addition to raise money, incentivize people to drive less, carpool or use mass transit? Would it encourage developers to build transit-oriented development and pedestrian-friendly communities? Would it, in sum, reduce the demand for new roads in any way? Or would it perpetuate Business As Usual?
• Is there a guiding vision behind the investment of this money? Would you invest it to increase connectivity of existing development — in other words, to promote infill and redevelopment? Or would you use it to open up new greenfields, perpetuating the pattern of scattered, disconnected, low density development that is the root of Northern Virginia’s transportation woes?
• Would you accompany this spending with any changes in land use? Or do you think that money is all that’s needed to improve mobility?

I have seen precious little indication that the business interests in Northern Virginia have given any attention to any of these questions. If they succeed in getting these taxes passed, here is my prediction: It won’t make a discernible difference in traffic congestion. Because the region isn’t addressing the root causes of congestion, Northern Virginia will wind up with terrible congestion and higher taxes. And the same poor, deluded fools will come back in a few years saying that $400 million wasn’t enough, let’s raise taxes again.

Now, there’s a real recipe for economic competitiveness and a high quality of life!

The state of Maryland has just set aside $18.6 million to upgrade two Baltimore sewage treatment plants that are major polluters of the Chesapeake Bay. The source of funds: a “flush tax” — $2.50 a month added to household sewer bills — that is expected to raise $60 million to $70 million per year.

In an editorial today, the Daily Press lauds the Maryland tax for providing a stable, ongoing source of funding for water pollution clean-up efforts. Although Virginia did manage to dedicate $260 million from the budget surplus to one-time projects this year, future contributions are subject to fiscal vagaries.

For once, I agree with the Daily Press. I would add one point to the reasoning proffered by the Daily Press’ pundits: To the greatest extent possible, government services should be put on a “user pays” basis. The Maryland system establishes a direct and rational nexus between those who consume sewage “services” and contribute to pollution, and those who pay to clean up that pollution. Virginia, by contrast, taxes citizens and businesses indiscriminantly.

Furthermore, I would suggest this: Any new tax to clean up the Bay should be offset by a reduction of taxes elsewhere. I don’t believe in adding to Virginia’s tax burden — just restructuring it along the most rational economic lines possible.

I’m a little late getting to this but don’t take my tardiness as apathy. I’m delighted to pass on the news that Will Vehrs, suspended from his state job for 10 days for participating in a blog caption contest during office hours, has been reimbursed for lost pay. Commonwealth Conservative broke the story here.

Vehrs filed a grievance, and the findings have been posted online. A key excerpt:

The [Department of Business Assistance] charged [Vehrs] with excessive personal Internet access. The agency has not shown that grievant’s blogging affected either his or any other employee’s productivity or work performance, that it adversely affected the efficient use of the computer system, or that he violated any other policy, regulation, law or guideline.

Vehrs did make comments that were “inappropriate and inflammatory,” the case hearing officer found, but “there has not been any showing that grievant wilfully set out to write comments he knew to be offensive. Rather, he wrote them in a somewhat cavalier fashion.” Also, noted the hearing officer, Vehrs immediately apologized when informed that people had been upset by his joke.

Finally, the hearing officer concluded that the DBA deprived Vehrs of due process during the disciplinary action. The state has filed the decision on the Internet here.

Update: The Associated Press ran a brief story. After all the negative publicity given the case, I’m glad to see that Vehrs’ exoneration is disseminated to the public.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has signed an executive order creating an Office of Telework Promotion and Broadband Assistance within the Office of the Secretary of Technology. The Office will encourage and promote telework activities for public and private employers, and work to advance innovative models that expedite the deployment of “last-mile” broadband technologies throughout the Commonwealth.

Said Kaine at the 2006 Commonwealth of Virginia Innovative Technology Symposium held in Roanoke: “Telework is a family-friendly, business-friendly public policy that helps us recruit and retain a high-quality workforce in a competitive job market. It also protects environmental quality and promotes energy conservation by reducing traffic congestion and vehicle emissions.”

With portable computers, personal digital technology, and high speed telecommunications links, many employees today can work almost anywhere at least some of the time. The Virginia General Assembly has set a goal of shifting a significant number of jobs into alternative work schedules by 2010, which will involve expanded use of telework. State agencies are being surveyed to gather baseline data on the amount of telework currently conducted.

One word reaction: Bravo!

Part I of a Two-Part Series

Greg Pearson does not particularly care for the Richmond Times-Dispatch or NBC-12. Actually, Pearson is not a big fan of Media General or many of the corporate media conglomerates. The publisher and editor of the Chesterfield Observer, one of two community newsweeklies covering Virginia’s fourth-largest locality, Pearson believes that local news issues suffer a lack of coverage by such large media corporations. As a response, Person regularly uses his editorials and his “Media Watch” column to chastise the larger news outlets for what he considers to be shabby treatment of Chesterfield news.

In Pearson’s mind, the situation with Media General is drastic enough to mandate an institutional response. For quite some time, he has been beating the drums for the creation of an outside intermediary organization to serve as a watchdog for fairness and accuracy in coverage, especially of news in his hometown. Called a “news council,” this group would field complaints, conduct investigation and serve as a sounding board for citizen, business, and government criticism of the local press.

According to Pearson, “the news council idea is not an original one. I first inquired about it in 1997 when I heard about it and contacted the Minnesota News Council. I spoke with Gary Gilson (the Minnesota group’s executive director) who said it would be announced what markets are given a grant [by the Knight Foundation] to get a news council started.”

What Pearson is referring to is the Knight Foundation, a national grant-making institution founded by the men who started what the Knight-Ridder media empire. In June, Knight awarded two $75,000 grants to emerging news councils in Southern California and New England to assist with start-up costs. According to a Knight press release, “News councils are independent, nonprofit organizations that promote trusted journalism by investigating accuracy and fairness complaints against news outlets. They help determine the facts involved in these disputes, and provide open forums where citizens and journalists can discuss media ethics, standards and performance.”

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From Alec MacGillis with the Washington Post:

WestGroup, the biggest landowner at Tysons Corner, has urged Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) to reconsider his rejection of an underground rail route through Tysons, saying a tunnel should be explored further at the same time as plans for an elevated track proceed.

In a letter to Kaine, WestGroup chairman and chief executive Gerald T. Halpin said he was “extremely disappointed” by Kaine’s “stunning reversal of direction” against a tunnel. On Wednesday, Kaine ruled out a tunnel for the four-mile Tysons stretch of the Metrorail extension to Dulles International Airport, after federal officials made it clear that switching to a tunnel would imperil the entire 23-mile, $4 billion project….

Halpin, one of the founders of Tysons Corner, wrote Kaine yesterday that the price of the project with an elevated track is sure to increase with time. Why not, he said, proceed with those plans but at the same time put a tunnel out to bid, to get a firmer price with which to compare designs? This would take only half a year and would cost no more than $7 million, which could be paid for by the private sector, Halpin said.

I’m increasingly uncomfortable with the way federal rules and deadlines are stampeding the Commonwealth into making critical decisions about the Rail to Dulles project. How much money are the feds contributing? About $1 billion of a $4 billion project? That money can’t be raised any other way? I’m feeling worse and worse about the way this project is unfolding.

Hampton Roads’ “Third Crossing” is back in play. A majority of Hampton Roads legislators have reached an informal agreement that the bridge-tunnel linking Norfolk and Newports News does need to be built, quelling speculation that the massive project was unaffordable, given the limited funding mechanisms available. (Read the Virginian-Pilot story here.)

What remained unresolved was how to pay for the Third Crossing and other expensive highway projects — requiring an estimated $275 million a year — that local political and business leaders insist are necessary. Legislators are exploring a package of tolls and selective regional taxes.

There are good reasons for supporting the Third Crossing from an economic development perspective. But that constitutes only one part of legislators’ ambitious road-construction plans, most of which are designed to alleviate congestion.

Still absent from the discussion is the idea that commuters, businesses or anyone else also need to alter their behavior in any way. From what I’ve read, land use reform, carpooling, mass transit, telework and schedule shifting don’t seem to be on the table. I can only hope that Hampton Roads lawmakers are considering alternatives that the newspapers just aren’t covering.

It’s ironic that Hampton Roads is the locale for two of the more successful suburban redevelopment projects in the state — Town Center in Pembroke and Oyster Point in Newport News — not to mention the incredibly successful revitalization of downtown Norfolk. From what I can tell, those success stories, which increase density around existing infrastructure without significantly increasing congestion, don’t appear to have had any impact on the local discourse about transportation.

A Richmond Times-Dispatch poll shows a strong majority of Virginia favoring the proposed constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage. Fifty-four percent of the respondents said they will vote for the Nov. 7 measure, while 40 percent were opposed and six percent undecided.

The results did not change significantly from a poll in July.

I sympathise with the motivation behind the amendment: the desire to counter the activism of out-of-state judges who would impose same-sex marriage by judicial fiat. But I continue to worry about the fall-out from the wording of this particular amendment, which could threaten the rights of unmarried couples, same-sex or otherwise, to enter into wills, trusts and other legal agreements. Pundits can legitimately disagree what that fall-out will be, but we won’t know for sure until the inevitable legal cases are ruled upon… by judges.

If it’s any consolation, at least they’ll be Virginia judges. I suppose that’s better than Massachusetts or California judges.

The Daily Press (School’s religions policy revisited, Sep 12, 2006) reports that York County School Board revisited its 1988 policy “after members of the public complained in March that schools were going too far in distancing themselves from religion, removing references to religious holidays from school activities.” Not quite. I was at the meeting last night and the one in March. The parents complained about schools that were culturally cleansed of Christmas as well as the Communists did in the old Soviet Union. No exaggeration.
The School Superintendent, Steven Staples, response is a nice bureaucratic side step.

Staples revised the York policy on “Section 9.5.3 – Religious Instruction and Released Time.” He added to the original three paragraphs with excursions on “encouraging all students and staff members to be aware of the diversity of beliefs and respectful of each other’s religious and/or non-religious views.” And “in that spirit of respect, students and staff members may be excused from participating in activities that are contrary to their religious beliefs unless there are clear issues of compelling public interest that prevent it.” Wow, when would the school have such a compelling issue? But, it’s all a digression. One paragraph comes close to addressing the issue.

“This policy will not be interpreted or applied in such a manner as to inhibit or proscribe the traditional use of prayers, religious music, or religious objects or symbols in any secular program sponsored by the division, when such activity does not involve the promotion of a religion.”

Notice the limiting word ‘program’. Are bulletin boards, class parties, and teaching instruction included in the word ‘program’? What part of the school day and activities are not part of a secular program?

The issue isn’t religion in schools. The issue is official holidays and schools. No parent asked for the schools to teach ‘religion’. None. Every parent demanded the schools teach and recognize in full, historical, traditional, and unifying, official holidays. Christmas is an official U.S. and Virginia holiday.

Superintendent Staples used the Virginia School Board Association sample policy for religion. He should have used the Federal and Virginia Department of Education guidelines for holidays as the parents asked in March.

The School Board lawyer changed the first draft from “The division also recognizes that one of the educational responsibilities is to advance the students’ knowledge of the role that religion has played in the social, cultural and historical development of civilization to the “educational roles is to advance the students’ knowledge and appreciation of religious diversity. They’re dropping the educational view of the role religion has played for the political indoctrination of ‘diversity’. The lawyer said it was more in keeping with the court decisions.

The Superintendent and the lawyer said the case law is conflicting. Indeed it is, because courts have taken over from weak legislatures and executives since the former KKK Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black started imposing his will in 1947. Courts promote Constitutional ignorance to exercise tyrannical power. Like the first sentence of the York policy which says “In accordance with the mandate of the Constitution of the United States prohibiting the establishment of religion , it is the policy of this School Board that York County shall be neutral in matters of religion.” The Constitution says ‘Congress’ will not establish a religion. The York School Board isn’t Congress.

The parents want the School Board to set a policy that will follow Federal and State guidelines on holidays – not religion. The parents want the School Board to support the SOL that teaches students about traditional, historical holidays that unite Virginians.

This policy will be read again at a School Board meeting on Sep 25th for approval. Then, there will be implementing regulations written – if it is approved. The devil hides in these details. I encourage the voters to get the York School Board to fix the problem with a policy on holidays – and not the PC prose on religion. It’s just an artful dodge.

A few weeks back, the Richmond Times-Dispatch was the subject of several unflattering portrayals at the hands of Richmond leading alternative weekly paper, Style Weekly (owned by Media General Competitor Landmark Communications). Sensing blood in the water, opponents of the venerable daily gleefully jumped upon the anti-RTD bandwagon. Though it contained some intriguing insights, especially about the “gag order” that RTD reporters operate under, the Style piece presented in a somewhat conspiratorial manner what would actually be a rather typical occurrence in any other industry. With the RTD having a new senior management team, a number of changes are in motion producing shifts in corporate culture.

Though I am not a journalist (but I do play one in the blogosphere), I dare say that when other major corporations (think GE, Wachovia, Home Depot, etc) undergo significant leadership changes against a backdrop of shifting industry dynamics and emerging competition from unforeseen corners (like blogs), life gets a bit hairy for the worker bees (those would be the journalists). As the RTD is basically the biggest dog in the local media kennel, what inevitably happens is that the smaller dogs like Style Weekly, Richmond.com, Richmond Magazine, Richmond Free Press, Chesterfield Observer, and various bloggers nip at their heels from time to time. Such is the nature of competition in a market economy.

With only passing knowledge of the internal operations of the RTD (and most other newspapers and media companies for that matter), I frankly had no pressing need to discover any of the “dirt” over there. Still knowing that journalists with media outfits constantly endure an existential crisis with respect to practicing their craft inside a bottom-line oriented business concern, watching the cannibalistic feeding frenzy that emerged from the Style pieces and the general changes afoot at the RTD have been fascinating. With my own community paper joining in the hit parade, renewing its call for a media monitoring entity – or news council – it seems like a good time to do a little poking and prodding around the periphery of the local media.

What emerged is a lengthy, two-part series – which will be featured on both South of the James and Bacon’s Rebellion – about watch-dogging the Metro Richmond media market that will run starting, tomorrow, Tuesday, September 12, 2006.

Despite my best efforts to cut them down into more bite-size kernels, the quotes, comments, and insights that I gleaned from talking with various people from the area’s community media and blogging worlds all deserved their day in the court of public opinion. Limiting the universe somewhat helped keep it manageable.

As journalism legend Charles Kuralt once noted, By contrast with the Yankee, the Southerner never uses one word when ten or twenty will do.” The article that follow are the end result of what happens when a selected group of Richmond-area bloggers and alternative media types are given free reign to make open-ended commentary on the subject of local media bias and what actions can and should be taken to correct it. Of course, because this is the blogosphere, these articles are not the end of the line for this subject by any means. As this is a recurring theme for both South of the James and Bacon’s Rebellion, expect to see more on this subject, just maybe not as wordy! Feel free to make comments on either or both sites, and as always, if you want to chat off-line, holler at me via [email protected].

— Conaway

The latest data point regarding the widespread re-evaluation of transportation policy is a column in today’s Virginian-Pilot, whose editorial writers for years had steadfastly defined the traffic congestion crisis as a lack of funding. The Pilot’s pundits have awakened to the critical importance of land use! Blow me away — I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own two peepers.

Sayeth the Pilot:

A curious thing happened recently en route to a Loudoun County supervisors’ vote that restricts home building on a bucolic tract west of Dulles International Airport. Land-use legislation that sailed through the Assembly last winter played an important role in drumming up support for controlled growth.

The law, which pro-growth and anti-growth forces alike dismissed as meaningless in March, requires a Virginia Department of Transportation impact statement when localities make land-use decisions affecting roads.

When VDOT – its spine stiffened by the governor’s office – issued its first such report, the forecast stopped the Loudoun County debate dead. Predictions of three-county gridlock spurred a 5-4 vote that could ultimately half a prospective 37,000 new homes.

And how about this?

Serious legislators in both parties recognize that government will never get a handle on transportation spending so long as local governments can approve growth willy-nilly, while passing to the state the tab for maintaining a huge network of roads.

And this:

One plan under consideration would require suburban counties to maintain portions of their own ever-expanding network of roads. That job currently falls to the state under laws written when Virginia was a rural domain three-quarters of a century ago.

As tentatively outlined by Del. Clay Athey, R-Front Royal, a former mayor who understands land-use issues, counties would get a road maintenance allowance from the state, much as cities do today. They might also share in the presumed savings if the locality – rather than VDOT – oversaw the work. Impact fees on development in more rural areas of such counties might steer growth toward density.

The plan is far from official, but the fact that once radical notions are even talked about says how far the pendulum has swung.

The pendulum has swung indeed.

I’ll never keep up with BlogNetNews.com and Virginia Political Blogs in tracking political blogs, but I do try to bring new blogs (often “new” only in the sense that I have stumbled across them) to the attention of Bacon’s Rebellion readers. Here are the latest:

Vivian J. Paige, a blog maintained by Norfolk resident Vivian Paige, devoted to state and local politics.

Dog with Five Legs, a blog maintained by Fairfax attorney “TooManyTaxes,” a regular commentator in Bacon’s Rebellion.