Bacon's Rebellion

Occasionally, the spirit of sweetness and light descends upon me, briefly dispelling my jaundiced view of the state legislature. Most recently, I found myself nodding with approval when reading about a study by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission on Virginia’s manufacturing competitiveness. As John Reid Blackwell puts it in the Richmond Times-Dispatch: “State lawmakers want to know how much it costs manufacturing companies to do business in Virginia.”

That’s a worthwhile question to act. Despite its problems, manufacturing remains a pillar of Virginia’s economy. If manufacturers are to remain competitive in a global marketplace, state and local governments need to strip out all unnecessary costs and regulations.

The National Association of Manufacturers has found that regulatory costs account for nearly 22 percent of every dollar paid in manufacturing wages in the United States. What’s the comparable number for Virginia? Nobody knows. What are all the taxes and regulations that affect manufacturing costs? Nobody has compiled an inventory. We need to know, and the General Assembly is making an effort to find out.

In case you missed the headline’s wordplay on “Bad Pet Tricks,” let me hammer it home. Many shopping center developers are one-trick ponies. They know how to do one thing — plop a long, one-story building in the middle of a big parking lot — and they do it over and over. Sometimes, they seem so bored by it all that they don’t even do that one trick very well.

Waldo Jaquith has a great example in his critique (with photos) of a new shopping center going up off U.S. 29 north of Charlottesville. The shopping center has moved enormous quantities of dirt in order to elevate itself from the main drag. The interesting result is that, between the escarpment separating the road and shopping center, and the vast parking lot that pushes the buildings away from the road, it is nearly impossible for motorists to even see what’s in the shopping center! What merchant would want to locate a store there?

Was anybody in the developer’s office paying attention here?

Waldo also offers some sound observations on the importance of streetscapes and the decline of Albemarle County’s inner ring of suburban development. Go get ’em, Waldo!

I know I shouldn’t rise to the bait — it’s not as if Moveon.org is taken very seriously in Virginia. But, hey, it’s a slow news day, and stomping out economic illiteracy is always a worthy goal. It seems that the liberal political organization has been holding rallies around the country, including one in Staunton of all places, trying to draw the connection between Big Oil campaign contributions to Republicans and the high price of gasoline. As Chris Graham tells the story at the Augusta Free Press:

Since 1990, the oil industry has given more than $190 million to members of Congress – “and they’ve given three times as much to Republicans as they have given to Democrats,” [Moveon.org spokes person Nita] Chaudhary said.

“That money has guaranteed a policy that serves an industry over the public. Given that gas prices are off the charts, given the fact that scientists are continuing to warn us that global warming is at a tipping point, and given the fact that we’re in an increasingly uncomfortable situation in the Middle East, we can’t afford the Republican addiction to oil money anymore.”

The first question that comes to my mind is this: Do these people believe this twaddle, or do they peddle it knowing that it’s wrong but figuring that a gullible public will fall for it anyway?

Why are gas prices rising in the United States? It’s called supply and demand. Global demand for oil is increasing, driving up the price of petroleum. The high cost of developing new oil reserves, coupled with political instability in multiple oil-producing countries, has made it difficult to increase production enough to keep up with rising demand. The situation in the United States is aggravated by (a) environmental policies that restrict development of U.S. oil reserves, (b) environmental policies that restrict the development of new gasoline-refining capacity, and (c) the lobbying effort by agricultural interests, not big oil interests, to require the integration of ethanol-based fuel, at considerable cost, into U.S. gasoline supplies.

But there’s more…

“What we’re trying to say is, big oil contributes to Congress – and because of that, Congress is beholden to Big Oil, they get to write energy policy. We’re saying – don’t take any more oil money, and start coming up with sane energy policies. Things like increasing the CAFE standards, putting money into renewable resources, and also energy sources that don’t create emissions like wind and solar,” said Lee Godfrey, a Staunton MoveOn member who organized a Rally for an Oil-Free Congress that was held last week in the Queen City.

There’s an element of rationality in the argument for mandating better gasoline mileage in automobiles — although such a mandate would limit consumer choice by forcing Americans to buy smaller cars, it would reduce gasoline consumption. As for the other nostrums – newable energy, wind, solar, etc. — as desirable as they are, they would have zero impact on the price of gasoline. You see, wind and solar power would increase the supply of electricity, not gasoline! And we haven’t figured out a way yet to produce electric-powered automobiles that anyone will buy.

The other foolishness embedded in the Moveon.org critique is that conservation is good but high gasoline prices are bad. I happen to believe that conservation is very, very good. But common sense tells you that the best way to get people and businesses to conserve energy is to charge them more for it! If Moveon.org’s brow-beating of the petroleum companies succeeded in nudging down the price of gasoline, it would only undercut the larger goal of conservation.

If Moveon.org cared to address the real problems instead of shilling for the Democratic Party, it would focus on the fact that Americans are burning more gasoline because they’re driving more. Duh! Getting people to drive less would require paying attention to dysfunctional land use patterns. Of course, that line of thinking wouldn’t fit the Moveon.org worldview. No one is going to believe that the Big Oil companies are paying off local Virginia politicos in order to perpetuate the scattered, disconnected, low-density patterns of development that forces people to drive more.

Ironically, you could make the argument that Moveon.org is doing Big Oil a favor by distracting people from the real cause of rising U.S. demand for gasoline. Hmmm. Makes you wonder. Could Big Oil be paying Moveon.org to muddy the issues? If you adopted Moveon.org’s conspiratorial mode of thinking, it would make total sense.

When the University of Virginia recruited Joe C. Campbell from the University of Texas and named him the Lucien Carr III Professor of Engineering and Applied Science, the hire went largely unnoticed outside of UVa. But the coup is highly significant in more ways than one.

Campbell is known for inventing a device — a high-speed avalanche photodiode — that changes photonic signals into electronic signals extremely quickly, reliably and with very little noise or distortion. That achievement won him membership in the elite National Academy of Sciences. Explains an article in the University of Virginia Engineering Magazine:

Campbell brings with him an extensive research agenda—and a team of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to push it forward. “Essentially, everything we do involves converting light into large electrical signals,” he says. Campbell has projects under way that span the light spectrum, from ultraviolet to infrared. For instance, he is working with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to create highly sensitive detectors that can pick out the characteristic ultraviolet signature of a missile plume in the midst of the radiation that pours from the sun.

From an economic development perspective, Campbell is the first of 10 National Academy of Sciences members to be recruited to the University of Virginia faculty as part of UVa’s program to transform itself into a national R&D powerhouse. Says President John Casteen: “The hiring of Joe Campbell is the first step in a strategy to transform scientific research here and to position the University of Virginia as a preeminent research institution in science and engineering.”

In an interesting juxtaposition, UVa is the center of agitation for the so-called “living wage,” which would increase wages for workers at the bottom of the compensation pyramid. UVa officials did not release any information on how much it was paying the super-star scientist to come to Charlottesville, but it was undoubtedly a princely sum. But that’s reality: If you want to build a world-renowned research institution, which is a prerequisite for creating an entrepreneurial, knowledge-based economy, you have to recruit world-class scientific talent. And it takes more than the magnificence of Mr. Jefferson’s architecture to do that. The benefit of paying top dollar to bring Dr. Campbell to Charlottesville — even to those at the bottom of the wage scale — is economic growth and increased opportunity for all.

VoteJacksonville.com, a Jacksonville, Fla., coalition lobbying to relocate Oceana’s Naval Air Station to Cecil Field in Jacksonville, argues that the move would have a huge positive economic impact. According to a press release issued yesterday, it would:

• Bring more than 31,000 high-quality jobs to Jacksonville with an average salary of more than $50,000;
• Increase the economy of Jacksonville by $2.6 billion annually; and
• Improve the opportunities and lives of thousands of Jacksonville residents.

Jacksonville’s gain would be Hampton Roads’ loss. Given Virginia Beach’s past negligence in allowing such development to encroach Oceana, it may be impossible to save the air station. But Virginia Beach and the Commonwealth must expend every effort to make it happen.

I’m back at the Bacon’s Rebellion global command center this morning after a long weekend visiting the in-laws in Wilksboro, N.C.

Driving home, it was interesting to cross the state line on Interstate 85 and observe the marked difference in appearance between the N.C.-maintained and Va.-maintained sections of the Interstate. The North Carolina asphalt was mosaic of patches, subjecting travelers to a rythmic sound as their cars passed over sealed cracks at regular intervals. The Virginia asphalt was a thing of beauty: almost flawless, and very, very quiet.

The Tarheels must be spending their money on road beautification instead. Almost every on-ramp and off-ramp along I-85 was arrayed with bright, cheerful flowers. Stretches of highway near Durham has been planted with crepe myrtle trees in a narrow dividing strip. All the flora doesn’t do much to move automobiles, but it does make the drive a lot more pleasant.

On the Sunday before Independence Day WaPo has three items directly related to human settlement patterns:

In a very good front page story WaPo launches a multi-story attack on the federal farm subsidy program. This installment focuses on rice land on the Gulf Coast of Texas. A six column above the fold headline reads “Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don’t Farm: HARVESTING CASH Reaping Money for Nothing” by Dan Morgan, Gilbert M. Gaul and Sarah Cohen.

In the 70s, the planning firm I managed created a plan for what we would now call a Balanced Community on a 3,100 acre rice farm immediately adjacent to the City of Angleton, TX. Angleton in Brazoria County was the municipality closest to new Gulf petrochemical facilities that was also above the HUD flood zone.

Under this plan, the Planned New Community plus existing / renewed Angleton would provide places to live and acquire services and recreation to support the new jobs in the expanding ports, refineries and related economic base activities on the Gulf. Greater Angleton was to become a place with a balance of jobs / housing / services / recreation / amenity serving these new urban activities as well as the surrounding Countryside characterized by large, prosperous rice farms.

A compact, urban enclave would have saved 10s of thousands of acres of productive farm land from scattered, low density development – what real estate agents now call ‘Cowboy Starter Kits.”

The land owners who commissioned the work had the best of intentions and sold the land and the plan to an investor who said he intended to develop just what had been planned. (The “New Angleton” plan was developed by members of the same team that did the plan for southern Louisiana outlined in “Down Memory Lane with Katrina.” 5 September 2005 at db4.dev.baconsrebellion.com )

The WaPo story fills in some of the details of what federal farm policy and other counterproductive government action at all levels has done with best laid plans.

Farm subsides are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ways that public controls, programs and incentives subsidize dysfunctional human settlement patterns. But $23-Billion a year here and $23-billion a year there and, as Sen. Everett D. said: “First thing you know you are talking real money.”

The second item is an op ed on Page B7. “The False Hope of Biofuels: For Energy and Environmental Reasons, Ethanol Will Never Replace Gasoline.” The authors from Polytechnic University of New York eviscerate the idea that ethanol can be a viable substitute / replacement for gasoline and thus support private-vehicle mobility.

Authors James Jordan and James Powell have some baggage because their Maglev Center is supported by the idea that MagLev is a solution to urban mobility. In spite of this bias, it is doubtful that they would risk using completely specious numbers. Even if the numbers they provide are off by 100 percent they establish a clear picture of the roadway ahead and the idiocy of trying to drive private vehicles – and the settlement pattern they generate – into the future.

Jordan and Powell provide the overall numbers to put in perspective the whole issue of biofuels and other energy “alternatives” which will be to topic of an upcoming column. In addition they quantify the context of Brazil in the ethanol issue which we raised in “ENERGY INDEPENDENCE AND SUSTAINABILITY” on this Blog 28 May 2006.

The bottom line is that there is no place to hide – not hydrogen fuel cells, not nuclear energy, not more off-shore drilling, not modest conservation efforts and for sure not biofuels. The United States must FUNDAMENTALLY change human settlement patterns or disappear as a viable economic entity on the planet.

Why does the United States dig itself deeper into an unsustainable settlement pattern? That is showcased in the third article.

Headline says it all “Democrats Look Beyond City Limits: Candidates Turn New Attention to ‘Rural’ (sic) Voters.”

If you do not know why that is so telling, you have some other reading to catch up on before Wednesday.

When will WaPo and mainstream media come to their senses re human settlement patterns?

Hopefully not just in hindsight.

Happy 4th!

EMR

In our concluding comment on the Blog post GEOGRAPHIC ILLITERACY RAMPANT (4 April), we promised to further address the strong endorsement of private-vehicle systems by Chris B. which opened the comment section in this thread.

The 27 June report from the Surgeon General on the impact of second-hand smoke (Involuntary Smoking) reminded me I had started the response but had not finished it. Here are our thoughts on Chris’ comments on the superiority of an urban mobility system based on private vehicles and the settlement patterns that private vehicles support and require.

VOICES FROM THE PAST

Chris’ strong words had a familiar ring, not on this specific topic but on some topic… Then it struck me: It was my father extolling the virtues of cigarettes; his right to smoke them and his belief that smoking was not potentially detrimental to his health or those around him. He was just as sure he was right about smoking as is Chris about his right to use and the impact of private automobiles.

My father died of a smoking related illness before I was experienced enough to discuss a lot of things with him beyond those related to farming, hunting, fishing, building construction and hard work. A brilliant but unschooled person, his debates with summer rangers and naturalist (many of them college professors) were legendary in Glacier National Park during the 50s and early 60s. When our family established a scholarship fund in his name at the university, some of the most generous contributions came from those summer debate participants. He had a way with words and was often right on. (See “Santa Barbara–A Microcosm of Water Allocation Dysfunction” Chapter 11 Box 1 The Shape of the Future.)

Pa was dead wrong about cigarettes. Cigarettes did in both he and my mother but he spoke with the same assurance and tone as Chris’ comments about the private-vehicle mobility and access.

We have all heard variations of Chris’ pro-auto statements in a thousand circling camps (aka, hearings) related to pattern and density of land use. When pressed some admit that they are only trying to justify a decision they made before they understood the consequences. Many, however, really believe the scatteration and dispersion are good things, that “the long commute really is worth it” and some even think scatteration is a “solution” for immobility.

The statements of reverence for private-vehicle urban mobility are supported directly and indirectly by those who profit from:

The sale of automobiles and automobile accessories

Pumping, refining, shipping and selling petroleum products for private vehicles

Designing, building and maintaining roadways

Scattering of urban land uses across the Countryside.

These beliefs are reinforced daily by billions of dollars worth of advertising in MainStream Media, just as the misconceptions about smoking – freedom, relaxation, sophistication – were in the 20s, 30s 40s, 50s and 60s.

The dangers of smoking were dismissed as foolishness for years. I understand that similar statements were made about the need to pasteurize milk and enforce railway safety standards. I have the heard arguments against mine safety standards, comprehensive testing of the long term impact of drugs, listing the contents of packaged food and rating the content of entertainment products.

In the case of smoking tobacco, private-vehicle domination, unpasteurized milk, railway and mine safety standards, comprehensive testing of the long term impact of drugs, listing the contents of packaged food and rating the content of entertainment products someone loses economic advantage. However, in each of these cases the general public benefits from changes in the way society addresses health, safety and welfare as civilization advances.

But why do others who in fact are losers (some individual losers, all collective losers) champion the myths that enrich tobacco interests, auto makers, land speculators and road builders, milk producers, railway and mine owners, drug companies, food processors and the entertainment industry?

Perhaps a second voice from the past can shed some light. One of our most enjoyable law school experiences was chairing the Boalt Hall Speakers Forum. Back before notable persons expected a four and five figure fees for appearing in person to express their thoughts, getting prestigious speakers to visit a respected law school in the San Francisco Bay New Urban Region was easy and rewarding–great lunches at the Faculty Club, great talks and stimulating discussions afterwards.

One of the most memorable personalities and one of the best speakers was Eric Hoffer. Hoffer, a longshoreman, was a mountain of a man and a tremendous speaker. His 1951 book True Believers: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements provides valuable insight on why some who turn out to be individual losers still champion causes that result in everyone being a loser. Hoffer’s insights may provide insight into support mobility systems that cause dysfunctional human settlement patterns.

TODAY’S VOICES AND TODAY’S MEDIA

In his book Collapse: Why Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond outlines two fundamental causes for collapse of societies:

Failure to intelligently plan for the future

Failure to reconsider traditional values when times and conditions change.

(See “Collapse, An Appreciation,” 8 August 2005 at db4.dev.baconsrebellion.com

Is cigarette smoking a traditional value? Is it a private “right” given the impact of second hand smoke now called Involuntary Smoking?

Is the right to drive a private-vehicle wherever one wants to drive it, whenever they want to go there a tradition value? Is it a private right? Is it worthy of massive public subsidy?

For whatever reason, a substantial minority of citizens come forward to champion “conventional stupidity” about citizens “love affair with the automobile” and the superiority of the settlement patterns that extensive reliance on private vehicle’s dictate.

We know they are a minority because the market demonstrates that those who can afford it, choose more compact, functional settlement patterns.

In a comment under the post “HOWLING IGNORANCE” on this blog (29 March 2006 now archived) we note:

“It is far easier to solve the engineering issues and address intelligently the economic, social and physical ramifications of creating functional human settlement patterns than it is to stem the flow of misinformation and intentional distortions from those who do not like the outcome of fact based discussion (of the pattern and density of land use).” This cohort includes those who what to sell their land for scattered urban land uses and who own land outside the primary station-area of shared-vehicle transport systems.

The surprising thing is that those who hope to directly benefit from dysfunctional patterns of settlement are joined by those who say they really believe that private-vehicle dominated settlement patterns are a good thing. They champion the private-vehicle and claim it is the best current and future option to provide mobility and access for urban citizens. Blogs provide the perfect venue for propagating misinformation of the topic.

EMR

This ain’t your father’s Fairfax County. KSI Services Inc., of Vienna, has received the OK from the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to build 152,400 square feet of offices (with an option to add 50,000 square feet more), 32,100 square feet of retail and 500 residential units onto a scant 18 acres. The urban, mixed-use project stands on property that previously had been zoned industrial, permitting no residential at all, according to an article in the Connection newspapers.

From my distant vantage point here in Richmond, it looks like a winning formula: Give developers permission to increase density… which increases the revenue flow from the project… which allows the developer to provide public infrastructure such as, in this case, parking, quality open space and the extension of the four-laned, median-divided Government Center Parkway.

The Ridgewood project at the intersection of Waples Mill Road and Lee Highway will have a New Urbanism feel: ground-level retail in multi-story buildings otherwise dedicated to apartments, condos and offices… parking tucked underground… pedestrian-friendly design of the streetscapes… housing designed for households making less than $74,000 a year… and quality public spaces.

Plus, Ridgewood will offer a feature that’s quickly becoming all the rage in Fairfax County, a Traffic Demand Management (TDM) plan. The Connection article offers few specifics on the plan other than to say that “Ridgewood will … participate in a future shuttle-bus program.”

Many of the traffic demand features are baked into the project. A mixed-use project, by its very nature, creates an environment where people can conduct some of their routine errands and trips on foot. Also, because KSI has designed eight percent of the apartments/condos as “workforce” housing, dozens of teachers, police officers, clerks, tradesmen and other blue- and pink-collar workers can forego buying a house in Stafford/Spotsylvania counties and making the grueling, 50-mile commute on Interstate 95 every day.

Developers like KSI and Pulte Homes in Fairfax County are ahead of the curve. They’re designing transportation-efficient communities — not as the result of government fiat or social engineering but in response to market demand. Fairfax County, apparently, sees the wisdom in this kind of mixed-use development and is permitting departures from its outdated zoning code and comprehensive plan.

The Ridgewood project drives home, once again, that the ultimate, long-term solution to traffic congestion in Virginia lies not in widening our thoroughfares to 17 lanes but in revisioning the way we build our communities. This trend is real, folks, and let us hope that the General Assembly takes cognizance of it when it reconvenes later this year to discuss transporation solutions.

City officials in Alexandria are cracking down on the phenomenon of “mansionization,” which they fear is disrupting the character of traditional neighborhoods. Locations in the core of the Washington New Urban Region have gotten so valuable that people are tearing down older, smaller houses and building mansions that dwarf their neighbors. The trend, in the words of Alexandria mayor William D. Euille, “threatens to undermine the harmony” of the city.

City council has enacted emergency legislation to block the re-development and plans to take up a permanent solution, limiting the size or height of new homes, according to an article by Annie Gowen with the Washington Post. Arlington County, she noted, is grappling with similar problems.

The mansionization controversy pits two competing views: One view says that a property owner should have the right to build anything on his property as long as it doesn’t actively obstruct or interfere with his neighbors’ properties. A contrary view notes that an inappropriate structure can diminish the value of neighboring properties, which rely upon a consistent neighborhood “look and feel” for their value. Neighbors, or the city acting on their behalf, should have the right to veto a building that, by size or architectural inconsistency, is jarringly incompatible.

There is an argument to be made that city and county zoning codes are regulating the wrong thing: They restrict supposedly “incompatible” uses, such as housing, professional offices and small retail stores from being located in proximity to each other when, in fact, the intermixture of such uses often is highly desirable. What local governments should regulate is incompatible heights and sizes that disrupt the continuity of streetscapes. In other words, no 10,000-square-foot mansions shoe-horned into a street of 1,500-square-foot townhouses or cottages.

Frankly, I’m not sure where I stand on these issues, but I’ll continue to track them for Bacon’s Rebellion.

An important new dynamic has entered the politics of taxes and transportation. Six Republicans in the House of Delegates — including senior legislators Del. Vince Callahan, R-McLean; Del. David Albo, R-Springfield; and Del. L. Scott Lingamfelter, R-Woodbridge — have rolled out a package of proposals to generate at least $400 million a year in new road financing for Northern Virginia.

What’s becoming increasingly clear is that the opposition of some Republican delegates to raising taxes for the Transportation Trust Fund by some $1 billion a year wasn’t a principled resistance to taxes, or even the belief that pouring more money into a broken transportation system won’t solve congestion. It was the concern that the Transportation Trust Fund formula short-changes Northern Virginia, as in fact it does.

As Michael Shear and Rosalind Helderman summarized the plan in the Washington Post Tuesday:

Under the plan, which the lawmakers presented to Northern Virginia business executives in a private meeting Monday, annual registration on automobiles in the area would more than double, from $29.50 to $59.50 for a typical passenger car.

Those who buy new vehicles or move vehicles into Northern Virginia would pay a higher tax. Tourists who rent cars and book hotel rooms would pay more. Home developers would be charged higher fees on their projects, and property taxes for office buildings would rise.

One could dismiss this initiative as simple political posturing for the consumption of constituents who are increasingly frustrated with traffic congestion. Perhaps. I can’t say. Regardless, it says something about the legislators’ understanding (or lack of it) of the nature of Virginia’s transportation crisis: The unstated assumption is that the problem is simply a lack of money to fund more transportation projects. The legislators did not include any alternatives to Business As Usual — building balanced communities, smarter urban design, telework, more creative approaches to mass transit, Intelligent Transportation Systems, etc. , etc. — in their proposal.

It will be interesting to see if the Axis of Taxes can peal off the Northern Virginia contingent from the hard-core, low-tax faction of the House of Delegates when the debate over taxes and transportation resumes in a special session later this year.

Notice to the Washington Post metro desk: Have your your Richmond reporters been acting strangely recently? Have they exhibited any quirks or unusual mannerisms? Are you quite certain they are who they say they are? You might want to have them tested.

After yesterday’s emotion-charged General Assembly session, in which the GOP-dominated House of Delegates rejected the last-minute budget amendments submitted by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, Michael Shear and Rosalind Helderman with the Washington Post wrote an article that was highly negative toward… are you ready for this… toward Gov. Kaine.

The article started as follows.

The 2006 General Assembly gave final approval to the state budget and went home Wednesday, leaving behind a first-year governor who presided over the worst stalemate in the legislature’s history while failing to make good on his promise to ease traffic congestion for Virginians.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) confronted an issue that has bedeviled state leaders for two decades: how to finance billions of dollars in road and transit construction. His plan for tax increases to finance those improvements, presented six days into his term, stalled after he misread the resolve of his adversaries and overestimated public pressure for improvements.

He had mixed success with his other major initiative, an ambitious push to adopt new tools to slow growth. Efforts to help localities study the impact of development on traffic passed. But he failed to win passage of his boldest proposal, a new law letting local government turn down development if nearby roads are inadequate.

By pushing for the higher taxes, he also prompted the state’s worst budget stalemate, which ended four days shy of a deadline that threatened to shut down the government and cause a constitutional crisis.

“There’s a lot of people who have been around a long time who were surprised he attempted to tackle this elephant in his first session,” said Michael Toalson, the chief lobbyist for the Homebuilders Association of Virginia. “Most successful governors just try to survive their first session.”

Failing to make good… misreading the resolve of his adversaries… prompted the state’s worst budget stalemate… Ouch! Real Washington Post reporters don’t apply that kind of language to Democratic governors!

Contrast the WaPo’s coverage to the conventional Mainstream Media spin by Jeff Schapiro and Michael Hardy at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, who portrayed the “House Republicans” as hard-hearted meanies:

In a raucous finale to the unprecedented budget marathon, House Republicans yesterday spurned millions of dollars sought by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine for colleges, the environment and child care.

Concluding action on the state budget after a 169-day standoff, the General Assembly again spotlighted the bitter differences over taxes and spending that have splintered its fledgling GOP majority.

“This is almost a shameful day,” said Senate Republican Floor Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr. of James City County.

“Maybe it’s fitting we have a dysfunctional end to a dysfunctional session,” said Del. Ward L. Armstrong, D-Henry. …

“I’m just scratching my head in wonder of it all,” Kaine said.

Schapiro and Hardy finally get around to getting the House Republican side of the story by the 12th paragraph.

(In defense of the Mainstream Media, I would observe that the other accounts are largely neutral. The Virginian-Pilot emphasized the contention between local legislators over local pork-barrel projects, as did the Roanoke Times. The Washington Times played it straight down the middle, as did the Free Lance-Star.)

The coverage by the Times-Dispatch, supposedly the state’s “conservative” newspaper, doesn’t surprise me. The T-D political reporters have slanted the reporting in favor of the Governor and the Senate throughout the budgetary controversy. But the Post story? That confounds all expectations.

Washington Post reporters just don’t do that — they don’t trash talk Democratic governors. Did aliens abduct the real Shear and Helderman? Is House Speaker William Howell holding their families for ransom? I just don’t know. It will take me a while to sort all of this out.

Conservation tax credits are back in the news. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine says that legislators should not “grievously wound” Virginia’s land conservation program as the price for repealing the inheritance tax on the estates of multimillionaires.

Kaine supports the repeal of the Death Tax, but he also sees conservation tax credits as essential to his goal of preserving an additional 400,000 acres of open space from development by the end of his term. However, estimating that the death tax would drain some $100 million a year from state revenues, the General Assembly imposed a $50 million cap on the amount of conservation tax credits that could be granted in any one year. As the popularity of the program increased in recent years, lawmakers in the state Senate worried that it would create an open-ended loss state revenue.

Here’s the rub: The Death Tax/Tax Credit trade-off was a critical compromise that enabled the Senate and House of Delegates to come to a budget deal only days before the start of a new fiscal year. There just isn’t time to re-open the issue.

Oh, well, maybe next year.

Bob Lewis with the Associated Press has the story here.

Sean Connaughton, chairman of the Prince William County board of supervisors and a rising light in the state Republican Party, has been nominated by the Bush administration to run the U.S. Maritime administration — a position that he is almost certain to accept. Although Connaughton lost the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor last year, he has established a track record as one of the most effective local government leaders in Virginia. As the Washington Post recapitulates:

When he became a supervisor, the county had 280,000 people, an annual budget of about $400 million and one of the highest tax rates in the region.

He leaves an increasingly diverse county of about 364,000 people, a budget of $857 million and Northern Virginia’s lowest tax rate, which he and his board colleagues accomplished by cutting the tax rate as property values soared. The county also earned a AAA bond rating during Connaughton’s tenure, a gold star for local governments.

Developers are now paying more in proffers, voluntary funds used to offset the costs of schools, roads and other public services. Rather than wait for state transportation money to trickle down, the county used its money to build hundreds of miles of roads. And Prince William recently became one of a handful of municipalities in the state to propose creating a transportation department.

Frankly, I don’t know Prince William County well enough to judge Connaughton’s accomplishments. Prince William County stood in the path of growth, and there was no way that anyone could have tamed it. One can’t help but admire Connaughton for taking a proactive approach, raising local money for roads rather than whining that the state wasn’t doing enough. But is the county using those funds wisely? Is it coordinating its transportation projects with its zoning policies to create more balanced, better connected communities? Or is the county just playing catch-up with developers who convert vast tracts of farm- and woodland into a dysfunctional mess?

The abominable development taking place around the Gainesville interchange does not bode well for Connaughton’s legacy, although responsibility for that disaster cannot be fairly ascribed to any one individual. Tax rates in Prince William are low, that is clearly a bonus. But how well does the county work? Does it have a sense of community, a sense of place? Does it inspire loyalty — “I live in Prince William, and I love it!” — or is it a collection of stepping-stone subdivisions where people reside until they find somewhere else they like better?

Readers, please weigh in.

University of Virginia engineering professor Peter Norton has documented a century-long conflict between motorists and pedestrians for control over city streets.

When the automobile was invented, Norton notes, it was an intruder. States a profile of Norton in the University of Virginia News:

Early in the 20th century, pedestrians claimed the right of way on country roads and city streets, sharing the public space with children at play, domestic animals, carts, vendors, carriages and streetcars. … There was a clash of cultures, particularly in the cities, between residents who used the streets as an extension of their homes, chatting with neighbors and watching their children at play, and drivers of the newfangled vehicles who wanted to travel quickly from one place to another.

Eventually, motorists gained the upper hand in the battle for right of way. By 1930, the pejorative term “jaywalker” was routinely applied to pedestrians engaging in once-uncontroversial practices. “By then most people agreed (readily or grudgingly) that streets are chiefly motor thoroughfares,” Norton wrote in “Street Rivals: Jaywalking and the Invention of the Motor Age Street.”

But the clash continues. Norton sees modern-day activists carrying on the fight by advocating bike paths and bike lanes, traffic-calming measures in residential areas, and pedestrian malls, which ban cars and reclaim the street as public space for strolling, street performers, sidewalk cafes and vendors selling their wares from carts.