Bacon's Rebellion

Every cloud has a silver lining. I’m sure that Will Vehrs wishes the whole Martinsville blog controversy would go away, and he may well wish that his friends would stop defending him and let the whole matter drop. But, as one of Virginia’s earliest political bloggers and a zealous blogging advocate, Will can take some degree of comfort in the publicity his case is generating for Virginia’s blogosphere. Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist Ray McAllister used the kerfuffle as the occasion to highlight Virginia’s political blogs.

McAllister sums up much of the blogosphere by citing the cartoon in The New Yorker in which two dogs are talking. “‘I had my own blog for a while,’ one says. ‘But I decided to go back to just pointless, incessant barking.’” But he concedes that some are worth reading, from One Man’s Trash to Raising Kaine, from Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball to Not Larry Sabato.

And if anyone should doubt the influence of Virginia’s blogs on the Mainstream Media, check out the lead editorial in today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch. The T-D picked up on the hypocrisy of Del. Ward Armstrong, D-Henry, in calling for Vehr’s resignation — first noted by Virginia Virtucon and then spread by this blog, among others.

The latest buzz word among transportation managers in the Kaine administration is “corridor management.” The idea is simple: Virginia can do a much better job of increasing capacity of its major transportation corridors.

Take a four-lane or six-lane traffic corridor in your community. Observe how cluttered it is with intersections, turning lanes, subdivision gateways, shopping center entrances and curb cuts to innumerable gas stations, fast food stations and stand-alone stores. Everybody wants direct access to the main drag. But carrying capacity dies a death by a thousand cuts when drivers are entering and exiting the corridor willy nilly.

The Kaine administration thinks that state and local governments can increase the throughput of existing thoroughfares by limiting the points of access. The Kaine crew is pushing for closer cooperation between local land-use and state transportation planners, and it is asking for $50 million to buy back rights of way along selected corridors. Peter Galuszka, writing for the Road to Ruin project, has the scoop in “Corroding Corridors.”

I would add only a couple of brief editorial comments. First, $50 million would be money well spent as an experiment to see if this strategy has merit. It is crucial, however, that someone track the “before” and “after” performance of the traffic corridors so a Return on Investment analysis can be calculated. Secondly, traffic light synchronization (TLS) should be considered as another tool in corridor management. If the Kaine administration is looking at TLS, no one emphasized it to Galuszka.

Chris Walker, a real estate developer active in the Dulles Corridor, was the principal behind a $1 billion proposal to build 122 lane-miles of roadway along the Dulles Toll Road, which he would have financed privately and paid for with congestion tolls. Needless to say, he was not happy when Gov. Timothy M. Kaine scrapped his submission, along with competing proposals, and turned over development of the corridor to the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority. Under Kaine’s plan, the state will spend some $4 billion to extend heavy rail to Dulles.

Walker has fired off a letter to House Speaker William J. Howell proffering advice on a number of transportation-related matters. Clearly, Walker’s views are colored by his self interest, but that doesn’t necessarily make him wrong. I think he does a good job of clarifying important issues in the debate. His key points are (with my comments in italics):

1. Stop “playing politics” with transportation. In particular, stop diverting resources to mass transit. He writes: “In the Washington, D.C., area, the Council of Governments official 25-year Metropolitan Planning Organization Constrained Long Range plan, which includes Northern Virginia, allocates $57 billion of the $93 billion available, to transit. This is 60% of the budget to a mode which today serves only 4% of the actual demand, a percentage with is scheduled to decline to 2.5% in 2030. Of this, heavy rail is projected to decline from 2.5% to 1.8%. (Comment: Transit could serve a much larger percentage of the traveling public if the proper zoning were put into place around rail stations, and even more if the price of gas continues climbing.)
2. Don’t increase the public commitment to Metro. Metro is a fiscal black hole, he says. “If it were run as efficiently as London’s system, with slightly higher fares and outsourcing of most of its functions, it would make money every year and not need operating subsidies.” But it’s not. Metro is a mess. (Comment: Metro is a mess, and Virginia should insist that it clean up its act. But additional support may be unavoidable if service is extended to Dulles.)
3. Rank all transportation projects by their cost-effectiveness — how much congestion relief do they deliver per dollar spent? (Comment: I totally agree. I’ve made this point over and over: Determine the Return on Investment for every proposed transportation project — roads, rail, intelligent transportation systems, telework, etc. — and fund those with the highest returns. Take the decision away from the politicians!)
4. For new projects, adopt a “user pays” philosophy to the greatest extent possible. Tolls and gas taxes are preferable to other revenue streams. (Comment: Again, I totally agree. The people who pay for transportation maintenance and improvements should be those who benefit from them.)

Walker reserves special scorn for Kaine’s support of the Rail-to-Dulles extension of the Washington Metro. That project, he says, will absorb half of VDOT’s six-year budget for Northern Virginia while satisfying less than one percent of travel demand.

Why is this happening? Perhaps the [House] conferees could request full disclosure of the Kaine administration. Governor Kaine’s father in law has received six-figure lobbying fees to promote Dulles Rail, despite the fact he is not a registered lobbyist. The same situation applies to John Milliken, former transportation secretary, transition advisor to ex-governor Warner, and Democratic party power broker and lobbyist, again not properly registered. Isn’t the public entitled to know what is going on behind the scenes with these mega-projects?

Read the full text of his letter here.

Virginia Tech is the Commonwealth’s flagship research university, and it has set ambitious goals to increase R&D funding and rise in the rankings of the nation’s top research universities. Unfortunately, during the early 2000s, during the most recent years for which data is available, Tech didn’t rise in the rankings — it slipped.

The competition between research universities is brutal. Every research institution has set its sights upon increasing its rankings, so a university like Virginia Tech has to run hard just to stay even. According to TheCenter Top American Research Universities, the most authoritative ranking available, Tech pulled in $216.3 million research dollars in 2001, enough to score 45th nationally. Two years later, the Hokies raked in $247.8 million, a 14.6 percent increase, but still fell to 50th place.

Clearly, there was an enormous amount of research money sloshing around, and other universities were more adept at getting it. During the same two years, the University of Virginia surged from a rank of 76 to a rank of 66. Even Virginia Commonwealth University squeezed out a few extra notches, rising from 103 to 100.

What’s the problem in Blacksburg? TheCenter offers at least one clue. Virginia Tech may suffer a competitive disadvantage from its small endowment — $371 million, ranking a meager 126th among the 200 research institutions surveyed. Universities rely upon their endowments to supplement the salaries of prestigious faculty and to support teams of graduate students. Tech also generated $67 million in annual given, only enough to rank it 66.

The good news is that Tech seems to be beating the odds — its No. 50 ranking is clearly superior to its financial metrics. So, the university must be doing something right. As an institution lacking a medical school, typically a major magnet for research dollars, Tech leans heavily upon its highly respected engineering school to find research dollars. Any serious inquiry into Tech’s enduring strength, and its recent tumble in the rankings, needs to focus there. We will take a closer look in a future post.

The Region 2000 Local Government Council will hold a regional planning forum later this month to examine how land use can affect transportation in Central Virginia. Says the News & Advance:

Campbell County Community Development Director Paul Harvey … pointed out how more rural areas along U.S. 29 are zoned as agricultural residential, while areas such as Madison Heights are zoned business.

As cars drove through the area, the speed limits decrease in the business-heavy sections to help the traffic flow and minimize accidents, Harvey said.

“Any time you look at an area with a traffic problem, it’s usually the result of a land-use decision or a series of land-use decisions over the years,” Harvey said.

“If you don’t get people to think about (land use and transportation) at the same time, you can have some unintended consequences.”

Even smaller metropolitan areas in Virginia experience localized congestion. Addressing underlying land use issues could make a significant improvement to the quality of life. Too bad that Virginia’s larger metro areas, where traffic congestion is far more acute, have yet to achieve the same level of understanding.

The Virginia Virtucon blog calls for the resignation of Del. Ward Armstrong, D-Henry, the delegate who objected to Will Vehrs’ humor in an online caption-writing contest that made light of economic misfortunes in Armstrong’s home district. Armstrong, it seems, has used inappropriate humor himself, at times.

According to a May 2, 2006 article in the Cavalier Daily about sexual harassment:

However, sexual harassment is not confined to lobbyists and at times has found its way to the House floor. Del. Jeannemarie Devolites, R-Vienna, the majority whip, said she had negative experiences with three delegates when first elected to the House.

In particular, Devolites said Del. Ward Armstrong, D-Henry, publicly embarrassed her on several occasions, including doing an impression of Bill Clinton and comparing her to Monica Lewinsky. Later, Armstrong apologized for his comments on the floor of the House.

“I think they considered it part of my initiation,” Devolites said.

Luckily for Armstrong, Devolites didn’t choose to make a federal case out of the incident, or he might not have remained in the General Assembly long enough to call for Vehrs’ resignation.

Chad Dodson weighs in on the issue here. And Waldo Jaquith here. An Associated Press story appears here. Writer Kristin Gelineau characterizes Vehrs’ captions as “snarky.” Does snarkiness (or is the noun form of the word simply “snark”) warrant a 10-day suspension?

First question: Is a state employee allowed to hold personal opinions contrary to the official position of the department he works for? The answer is easy. Of course, everyone is entitled to a personal opinion. The state does not engage in thought control.

The next question is a little trickier: Is a state employee entitled to publicly express his opinions if it’s clear that he’s speaking in a private capacity, not his capacity as a state employee?

That second question goes to the crux of the mini-firestorm swirling around Will Vehrs in the photo captions he submitted to Commonwealth Conservative last week, in which he made light of the Martinsville region’s economic decline. The story, first filed by the Martinsville Bulletin — picked up by Conaway Haskins here — was published this morning as the lead Metro & Virginia story in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Even though Vehrs has apologized profusely, local politicians and economic developers have called upon the Governor to fire him.

Said Del. Ward Armstrong, D-Henry: “I understand his apology, but he’s in a position where he’s going to be working with economic development. How can he work with a potential prospect after having in a public fashion demeaned the area? … It’s not a criminal offense, but it does destroy his effectiveness in economic development.”

Three observations:

1. Del. Armstrong needs to get his facts straight. Vehrs works with the Department of Business Assistance, not in “economic development.” He mans a hot-line dispensing information to small businesses. He does not interact with business prospects that Martinsville and Henry County might attempt to lure to their region. His job assisting small businesses, even those from Martinsville and Henry County, is in no way compromised.
2. More to the point, Vehrs was not speaking in an official capacity, either for the Virginia Economic Development Partnership or the Department of Business Assistance. He was clearly blogging in his capacity as a private citizen. Has Vehrs violated any state policy? Has he violated any departmental protocols? What grounds would the Governor have for firing him? Does the Governor really want to set a precedent of quashing a state employee’s right to free speech in the blogosphere?
3. Armstrong’s strong-arming of Vehrs is likely to backfire. Everyone can sympathise with the economic plight of Martinsville and Henry County. But few will sympathise with Armstrong’s seemingly vengeful lashing out against a mid-level state employee for words that, objectively speaking, caused no harm. This is not the kind of visibility that Martinsville-Henry County wants to generate for itself. The last thing the region needs is for the blogosphere to mobilize in Vehrs’ defense. No one would benefit from the story going national.

Best solution: Let it go. Vehrs is obviously remorseful. He’s learned his lesson. Let the story die, and get back to economic development.

Update: The Kaine administration has suspended Vehrs from his job for 10 days. Will blogs about it on Commonwealth Conservative.

Andrew Boenau, a Richmond transportation engineer, is a big fan of roundabouts. In fact, he has participated in the design of two of Virginia’s 12 roundabouts — one on the Virginia Tech campus and one in Gloucester County. For anyone interested in finding out more about this unconventional traffic-management tool, he recommends visiting the website of Michael Wallwork, a world-renowned expert. Wallwork, who cut his teeth as a traffic engineer in Melbourne, Australia, and now lives in Orange Park, Fla., explores the abundant design possibilities.

As the photo above from Clearwater, Fla., (taken from Wallwork’s website) makes evident, roundabouts do more than manage traffic flow. They stand out as major landmarks. The circles create visual focal points, which can be amplified with fountains, statues, gardens or other civic ornamentation. And, oh, by the way, this Clearwater roundabout carries 58,000 cars a day and 8,000 pedestrians.

By Boenau’s count, the Richmond region is the lead adopter of roundabouts in Virginia. There are two in Richmond — including the magnificent circle on Monument Ave. with the Robert E. Lee statue — as well as one in Chesterfield County and three in the West Creek office park in Goochland County. Charlottesville is coming on strong with one roundabout and three under construction. Gordonsville, Blacksburg, Amherst, Gloucester and Winchester also sport roundabouts.

Update: Boenau has pointed me to this Virginia Tech web page with an aerial view of the university’s roundabout.

Another post on the behalf of James Atticus Bowden:

Del. Phil Hamilton, R- Newport News, got his op ed response to Sen. Marty Williams (see “Republican Senator’s Blame Game on Transportation“) in the Daily Press on the lowest circulation day. Fewer folks get to see the truth.

Phil pointed out that the 1986 sales tax increase for transportation is a use of General Fund revenues that otherwise would be used for public education, public safety and health care. Also, Phil reminded Marty that he voted for budgets that used $339 million of general fund surpluses and general fund revenues from the insurance premiums tax for transportation.

Most importantly, Phil pointed out that Virginia’s Governors have used special sessions for special issues. Past governors cared too much about good governance and the Commonwealth than hold the budget hostage and push to a government shut down.

“In recent history, four different governors have wanted to address a major public policy initiative in their first term. In 1966, Gov. Mills Godwin wanted to impose a state sales tax to create the community college system. In 1986, Gov. Gerald Baliles wanted to address transportation (for the ‘permanent’ solution – JAB editorial addition). In 1994, Gov. George Allen wanted to abolish parole. Finally, in 1998, Gov. James Gilmore wanted car tax relief while several legislators wanted school construction funding. In each instance, the state budget was passed and a special session was called to address these initiatives”

“Gov. Timothy Kaine should follow this successful model of leadership in his desire to address the transportation issue this year.”

Yes sir, Phil!

Gov. Kaine and the RINO Senators could pass a continuing resolution or increase spending (as the House suggests) about 20 percent today with an additional $1 billion in new transportation funding – and set aside the “crisis” of transportation plans and taxes for a special session – today. There’s no problem, no crisis, in funding for government in the Commonwealth. There’s a surplus of revenue.

The phoney crisis that shuts down government will be the most cynical exercise in political power I’ve seen in a Virginia that was the only state name uniquely, uniquely I say, associated with the word “gentleman”, since Massive Resistance. We’ve come too low, and it’ll get worse, unless Gov. Kaine and His Lordship Sir John Chichester and the RINO majority in the senate put the People, our Commonwealth, ahead of their petty political passion for power.

It appears that Will Vehrs, one of Virginia’s leading bloggers (formerly of this blog) and pundits has run afoul of state politicians and local economic developers from the Martinsville and Henry County regions due to comments he made in jest for the Commonwealth Conservative weekly caption contest. Will works for one of Virginia’s economic development agencies, and on last Friday, he submitted quite a few entries, all seemingly under the auspices of good fun. Now, those jokes have quickly turned into a little tempest.

So far, many of the state’s leading bloggers and blog readers have come to Will’s defense, while acknowledging that his comments may have stung some of the more sensitive members of the “victimized” communities. Will quickly offered a heartfelt apology, but that move failed to satisfy some local leaders. Now, the stakes have been raised even more as Del. Ward Armstrong is calling for Will’s head, and others, like Sen. Roscoe Reynolds are adding fuel to the fire.

In truth, Will may have exercised questionable judgment in submitting these comments, and the fact that he contributed several dozen does not look good. But, given that the people that he poked fun at were his own colleagues, and that he apparently has done nice work for and with them, this should never have generated such a high level of controversy. It even got to the point where a noted national blog, Instapundit, picked up on the story.

How this matter plays out should be of interest to all public employees – actually all employees, period – who engage in blogging and opinion writing unrelated to their jobs. Sure, we walk a fine line, but for those of us who blog under our own names, we are simply exercising our rights and engaging in our duties as responsible citizens. One mistake, if you can even deem Will’s comments as such, should not cost him his job or his reputation. If that happens, it should send chills down the spine of all of the Commonwealth’s civil service community and the general citizenry.

The response from Del. Armstrong & Co. was uncalled for, but it is yet another demonstration of how far some politicians will go to score brownie points with constituents while casting aside notions of freedom of speech for others. It is especially troubling when the “free-speaker” (or writer in this case) in question is a public employee who was not acting in any official capacity. Del. Armstrong & Co. should remember that standing in the bully pulpit is one thing, but simply being a bully is another matter altogether.

Without a doubt, this will be a lesson for Will and for all of us in the political blogging community. I’m sure that we will all be a bit more circumspect about blogging during work hours. This should also be a lesson to all the local economic developers out there who are so focused on marketing their locales that they ignore the sometimes harsh reality of those places. The “product” is what it is, and while no one likes to be made fun of, lashing back only enhances the embarrassment for those regions. Though cooler heads may and should prevail, with General Assembly politicians taking a moment out of their busy schedule of do-nothingness to address this non-issue, this situation seems far from over.

I’ve been using the Bacon’s Rebellion forum for some time now to make the connection between Virginia’s energy-intensive pattern of land use and Virginians’ vulnerability to oil price shocks. Every $.20 increase in the price of gasoline translates into $1 billion hit to Virginia consumers. It’s been a lonely job — no one else in the media picked up the theme. No other lobbying or activists groups picked it up either. Until now.

Three leading conservationist/environmental groups have issued a press release making much the same point that I have. Indeed, they’ve done me one better: calling for the state to set benchmarks for per capita Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) as a tangible measure of the effectiveness of state transportation policy.

“Certainly, neither VDOT’s long-term plans nor the proposals before the General Assembly account for the predicted continuation of rising gas prices,” says Lisa Guthrie, executive director of the Virginia League of Conservation Voters. “We are concerned about the absence of fundamental reform in land use and transportation planning in this era of high energy costs.”

“Our first priority in transportation should be to set and meet a goal to reduce the amount that current and future Virginians have to drive,” says Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. Progress would be measured in terms of Vehicle Miles Driven per capita. Reducing the amount of driving not only would reduce traffic congestion but cut energy consumption, energy dependence, pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

“To achieve this goal we must reduce the growth that is extending farther and farther away from our job centers. By revitalizing our cities and towns, and creating more mixed-use walkable communities we make walking, bicycling, carpooling, transit and shorter car trips possible,” says Chris Miller, President of the Piedmont Environmental Council.

“In America,” he adds, “one of the largest contributors of global climate change is the air pollution which results from the increasing vehicle miles traveled. Reductions in per capita VMT do more to reduce greenhouse gases that are the cause of global warming than new technologies and improved energy efficiency.”

(The press release does not appear to be online at this moment, but the Coalition will get around to posting it eventually. Click here to check its website.)

Full disclosure to readers: The Piedmont Environmental Council underwrites Bacon’s Rebellion’s Road to Ruin project. Chris Miller and I chat from time to time but we have never discussed the connection between land use and energy dependence. This is an issue the PEC has arrived at independently from Bacon’s Rebellion — unless, of course, they’ve actually been reading our stuff! In any case, we’re delighted to have someone else sharing our perspective on this issue.

An enduring theme of Bacon’s Rebellion is the escalating cost of higher education. Higher ed is both a vital institution in our society — and out of control. I recall reading that tuitions are rising at the rate of eight percent this year (sorry, no source) — not just in Virginia’s public universities, which are compensating for the supposed miserliness of the General Assembly, but throughout the nation.

The cost of attending Harvard has reached about $42,000 a year. Remarkably, this most prestigious of institutions maintains this exorbitant fee even as its endowment surges in size, reaching $25.9 billion in 2005 — or roughly $1.3 million for each of its 19,500 undergraduate and graduate students. Invest that $1.3 million per student in U.S. Treasuries, and you’d generate income of about $65,000 a year. (Clearly, no matter how much money you give this particular university, it will never be enough.)

Of course, Harvard is known for the acumen of those who manage its endowment. The university has invested a significant percentage of its portfolio in hedge funds, an investment category that has been generating higher returns than normal stock market indices — and much more than the five percent example used here.

Now, it seems, other universities are eyeing the outsized investment returns of Harvard and Yale, and they’re pumping their endowment money into hedge funds, too, according to a May 3 article in Business Week (and forwarded by alert reader David Kaplan). The risk is that hedge funds are now the “hot” investment category, they’re attracting billions of dollars in capital, and that too much money is now chasing too few opportunities. As in any other financial bubble, the late-comers will end up with sub-par returns — if they don’t lose their shirts outright.

I would be very interested in knowing the extent to which Virginia educational institutions are investing their endowments in hedge funds. I recall reading that the University of Virginia has done quite well by emulating Ivy League investment strategies — not that a booming endowment has been reflected by a moderation in tuition price hikes.

What concerns me is what happens if the hedge funds go bust as a category and endowments take a hit. Will Virginia university boards use that as an excuse to jack up tuitions even more aggressively? Heads we win, tails you lose?

Fredericksburg stands athwart the sluiceway of growth running from Northern Virginia south through Interstate 95, and the local Economic Development Authority is preparing itself for the inevitable. Instead of trying to halt growth, the the EDA has formed a JumpStart! committee to fogure out how to shape it.

Inspired perhaps by its beautiful historic downtown, JumpStart! is touting mixed-use development. That’s quite a departure from, and improvement upon, the gargantuan and ghastly Central Park retail complex across the Interstate. Thomas Crimmons, a member of the EDA, lays out his thinking in a column in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star:

Mixed-use development creates neighborhoods that include open public space, recreation areas, housing, offices, and retail space, all in one development that has an architectural theme and beautiful landscaping.

Mixed-use projects create pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods that allow people to live near where they work and shop….

The EDA is positioned to encourage, prod, advocate, lobby for “smart development,” and, when appropriate, finance mini projects throughout the city.

The Metropolitan Washington area can accommodate another 200,000 households and reduce traffic congestion just by putting the new houses in mixed-use, transit-oriented development. That’s the startling conclusion of an exercise conducted by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.

In his latest article for the Road to Ruin project, “Incentives out of Joint,” writer Bob Burke says there’s just one problem: There’s little financial incentive for local governments to cooperate. Given a revenue stream based largely upon property taxes and a state funding formula that reimburses affluent Northern Virginia localities as little as 20 percent for their education costs, local governments conclude that new households cost them more than they contribute in local tax dollars.

Until the tax structure and funding formulas change, it is unrealistic to expect local governments to support transit-friendly development that may relieve traffic congestion but brings in new families who pose a fiscal liability.

The bill for overtime sessions in the General Assembly have surpassed the $90,000 mark, according to the Warren Fiske at the Virginian-Pilot.

Gasp! Individual legislators are racking up a breath-taking $130 a day while twiddling their thumbs. Who do those guys think they are? The president of Exxon-Mobil?

K-Mart clerks, more likely. Most of these guys are professionals who get paid for their time. They’re losing money the longer the budget impasse continues and they cool their heels in Richmond.

Ninety-thousand dollars may be a lot to the Bacon household, but it’s a pimple on a mosquito’s butt in this year’s $53.9 million legislative budget: about 0.17 percent. As for the overtime’s impact on next year’s $17.9 billion General Fund budget, it doesn’t even register. G.A. overtime as a percentage of the total buget is so small my calculator won’t even calculate it. It doesn’t even amount to the the interest on the interest of state funds in the bank.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch also has made a big deal about the mounting cost of the extended session, dramatizing the numbers with informational graphics. My advice: Get over it. I’d much rather see our legislators take their time and get it right. Brother, what a non-issue.